Investors in OneCoin received coins created in an unknown way

A former Locke Lord LLP lawyer has pleaded not guilty to new charges of bank fraud and money laundering with the help of the OneCoin project. Mark S. Scott is accused of stealing $ 400 million from the proceeds of the fraudulent scheme.

Prosecutors have estimated that, in total, OneCoin investors have been deceived by an estimated $ 3.3 billion in the US. Scott’s share has been relatively low, as the damage caused by OneCoin internationally reaches $ 17 billion, based on recent BBC survey estimates.

Money laundering was done through a series of equity funds based in the British Virgin Islands, with the help of banks in the Cayman Islands.

It seems that Scott has managed to transfer about $ 300 million of funds to the Bank of Ireland, hiding the source of the money.

The initiator of the project has not yet been found

Bulgaria’s Ruja Ignatova was the initiator of OneCoin and has been missing since 2017, after which his brother Konstantin Ignatov took over. He was arrested in March and is currently involved in several trials.

OneCoin has never had a fair price or a public blockchain. Investors in OneCoin received coins generated in an unknown way, and some were even offered counterfeit assets. According to the Prosecutor’s Office documents, Ignatova explained the project idea in an e-mail before disappearing:

“Take the money, go away and blame someone else.”

In three years, OneCoin has become one of the most successful pyramid schemes and has managed to exist beyond the control of the crypto community. Instead, it was based on dating and personal belief. Other popular pyramid schemes were BitConnect, which reached $ 2.6 billion and Plus Token, worth $ 2.9 billion in Bitcoin (BTC).

Pyramid schemes require a constant flow of new funding and new entrants and have been used by crypto space as a source of enthusiastic buyers.