According to the results of an investigation by the Italian financial police, together with prosecutors of the South Tyrol province, 14 people linked to the OneCoin pyramid have been charged with aggravated fraud. Local media report.
The investigation established that three brothers from South Tyrol, living abroad, together with the pyramid’s founder Ruja Ignatova organized fraudulent fundraising on Italian territory. They recruited ten promoters into the illegal activity.
According to law enforcement, through local banks in favor of OneCoin, transactions totaling around €11 million ($12.9 million) were processed. About €5 million ($5.8 million) of this amount was raised by the promoters from about 3,700 residents of South Tyrol.
During the investigation, law enforcement authorities wiretapped the suspects’ phone conversations and conducted numerous searches across South Tyrol and Veneto.
The accused were charged with illegal distribution and promotion of electronic money, financial misconduct, and participation in a pyramid scheme. The cross-border nature of OneCoin was an aggravating circumstance.
The total damage from the pyramid’s activities amounts to at least $4 billion.
Back in 2014, Ruja Ignatova founded the OneCoin pyramid together with Sebastian Greenwood.
The project was originally pitched as a high-yield cryptocurrency, with investors earning profits not only from the asset’s growth but also from recruiting new participants.
In November 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found OneCoin lawyer Mark Scott guilty of laundering nearly $400 million.
In March 2020, Konstantin Ignatov, Ruja Ignatova’s brother, was arrested at Los Angeles airport. Subsequently, he pleaded guilty on several counts. He faced up to 90 years in prison. The U.S. government obtained a postponement of Ignatov’s sentencing, stating that cooperation with him was not yet finished.
One of the defendants in the investors’ class action against the pyramid’s organizers was the financial holding Bank of New York Mellon.
Ruja Ignatova has been charged in the United States in absentia; her whereabouts remain unknown.
Read more about the history of the creation and collapse of the OneCoin pyramid in ForkLog.
The Scam of the Decade: How a Doctor of Juridical Sciences organized the OneCoin pyramid and disappeared with billions of euros
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