{"id":71585,"date":"2022-12-17T10:41:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-17T08:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=71585"},"modified":"2025-09-08T09:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T06:48:11","slug":"onecoin-co-founder-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-and-money-laundering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/onecoin-co-founder-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-and-money-laundering\/","title":{"rendered":"OneCoin co-founder pleads guilty to fraud and money laundering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OneCoin co-founder Sebastian Greenwood pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\\\"twitter-tweet\\\">\n<p lang=\\\"en\\\" dir=\\\"ltr\\\">Co-founder of multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency pyramid scheme \u201cOneCoin\u201d pleads guilty<a href=\\\"https:\/\/t.co\/bhXmhAfS2B\\\">https:\/\/t.co\/bhXmhAfS2B<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) <a href=\\\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SDNYnews\/status\/1603813698749042689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\\\">December 16, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async=\\\"\\\" src=\\\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\\\" charset=\\\"utf-8\\\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\\\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\\\">\n<p>Greenwood and his accomplices, including the fugitive Ruja Ignatova, duped unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars, claiming that OneCoin would be the &#8216;Bitcoin killer&#8217;. In fact, the OneCoin coins were completely worthless,<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In 2014, Ignatova and Greenwood founded OneCoin, which was initially marketed as a high-yield cryptocurrency. Under the project, investors earned profits not only from the asset&#8217;s growth but also from recruiting new participants.<\/p>\n<p>Greenwood was arrested in 2018 in Thailand. Ignatova&#8217;s whereabouts have been unknown since 2017. The losses from OneCoin&#8217;s activities are estimated at $4 billion.<\/p>\n<p>In spring 2019, Konstantin Ignatov, the founder&#8217;s brother, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport. He subsequently pleaded guilty to several counts. The U.S. government secured a postponement of Ignatov&#8217;s sentencing, stating that cooperation with him was not yet complete.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2019, a court in the Southern District of New York found OneCoin attorney Mark Scott guilty of laundering nearly $400 million. Ignatova faced charges in the United States in absentia.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2021, authorities in Italy <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/onecoin-pyramid-promoters-in-italy-charged-with-fraud\">accused 14 individuals<\/a>, connected with OneCoin, of fraud with aggravating circumstances. According to the authorities, through local banks in favor of the pyramid, transactions totaling about \u20ac11 million were conducted.<\/p>\n<p>In spring 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/onecoin-founder-ruja-ignatova-added-to-europols-most-wanted-list\">Europol added Ruja Ignatova<\/a> to the list of the most wanted criminals and offered a reward of up to \u20ac5,000 for information about her.<\/p>\n<p>Later, the founder of OneCoin <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/fbi-puts-onecoin-founder-ruja-ignatova-on-the-ten-most-wanted-fugitives-list\">was placed on a similar FBI list<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Read ForkLog&#8217;s bitcoin news on our <a href=\\\"\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\\\" target=\\\"\u201c_blank\u201d\\\" rel=\\\"\u201cnofollow\u201d noopener\\\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Co-founder of the OneCoin cryptocurrency pyramid, Sebastian Greenwood, pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,1088,26],"class_list":["post-71585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-onecoin","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"26","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71587,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71585\/revisions\/71587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}