Two people were charged in Singapore for promoting a cryptocurrency-based multi-level marketing scheme (MLM), which packages catered to various income levels, from "starter" to "tycoon trader."
Said by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) as the first case of its kind in the country. The perpetrators in question had been promoting the pyramid scheme selling the fraudulent OneCoin, the cryptocurrency that has been able to defraud investors for over $3 billion.
To make this happen, one of the two was also charged for running One Concept Pte Ltd, a company created to promote the scheme.
Singaporeans who took part in this MLM scheme were sold educational courses and promotional tokens. To entice victims, the scammers said that the promotional tokens could be redeemed to “mine” OneCoin. As a matter of fact, the tokens are useless, as they couldn't be redeemed for anything.
Because it uses MLM, those who participated in the scheme were encouraged to promote it, with incentives and commissions.
According to the authorities:
The people in the scheme are expected to sell the product directly to end-users, and whenever successful, they will be incentivized and will be automatically positioned higher up in the pyramid.
And the further the person in up in the pyramid, the greater the earning they were promised to have.
However, the scheme was a scam, and none of the “cryptocurrency technology” OneCoin claimed to operate actually existed.
The scheme lured hundreds of investors with the promise of becoming the next Bitcoin. But, unlike Bitcoin, OneCoin’s blockchain did not exist.
Singapore’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), had previously inserted OneCoin on its Investor Alert List, a directory of entities that it believes are misleading the public.
Various governments worldwide have also issued warnings against OneCoin, advising people to not interact with any agent associated with the scheme.
The authorities named Konstantin Ignatov and Ruja Ignatova, two Bulgarian founders who were on top of the MLM pyramid, to be the masterminds behind this massive scam.
Ignatov was apprehended at Los Angeles International Airport, and was arrested on grounds of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
At that time, Ignatov was attempting to flee to Bulgaria, when men in suits handcuffed him and took him to an interrogation room.
According to the FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney, Jr. stated after the arrest of Ignatov:
Ruja Ignatova, a.k.a. ‘Cryptoqueen’, has been added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $4 billion through the OneCoin cryptocurrency company pic.twitter.com/fUL5Dmic46
— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) June 30, 2022
Ignatova, was charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
But on 25 October 2017, Ignatova managed to flee when she was tipped-off about the intensifying police investigations into her Sofia-based scam.
At that time, she allegedly learned that OneCoin was being investigated, after eavesdropping on her American boyfriend, who apparently cooperated with the police.
Leaving no sign or trace, Ignatova became a fugitive.
She left Karl Sebastian Greenwood, her partner in crime, to clean up the mess.
Greenwood, who co-founded OneCoin, was arrested in July 2018 at his home in Koh Samui, Thailand, and was later extradited to the U.S.. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money.
With both Ignatov and Greenwood in jail, only Ignatova remains.
Soon, she was placed on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list.
For about five years, nothing is heard from the "Crypto Queen," until all of a sudden, a plush London penthouse flat Ignatova owns re-appeared on the market.
The four-bedroom penthouse was said to have once been stuffed with expensive artwork and designer clothes.
It appeared the 42-year-old Bulgaria-born German national was orchestrating a sale from her hiding.
The same week after the £12.5 million "ultimate penthouse" was listed for sale, Ignatova was publicly revealed as the owner.
But at least initially, neither the UK police nor Ignatova herself are behind the sale of the luxurious pad.
The claim was only made by prosecutors in the north-west German city of Bielefeld.
Before Ignatova was declared the owner of the property, the formal owner was a Guernsey-based company registered as Aquitaine Group Limited, a wealth manager who has never replied to inquiries about Ignatova.
Not only that, because Bielefeld's prosecutors have also accused Ignatova's lawyer of money laundering for transferring €20 million (£17.5 million) to fund the purchase of the penthouse and a second flat in the same building.
OneCoin, created in 2017, is one of the biggest known of cryptocurrency scams, with the FBI estimating its value at $4 billion.
"The cryptocurrency OneCoin was established for the sole purpose of defrauding investors," said IRS Special Agent John R. Tafur in a statement.
Ignatova even referred to the concept for OneCoin as a “trashy coin,” federal officials said in court documents, and that she also described their investors as "idiots" and "crazy" in an email to her brother, Ignatov.
In a later news, it was reported that Ruja Ignatova, the Crypto Queen, has been murdered.
During her run, the fugitive was the public face of the Ponzi-scheme OneCoin pyramid scam, wanted by the FBI. But the scammer was said to be lifeless on a drug kingpin's yacht, before she was dismembered, by the orders of the Bulgarian drug kingpin, Hristoforos Amanatidis, also known as "Taki".
Her body was then allegedly thrown overboard into the Ionian Sea, a body of water south of the Adriatic Sea between Italy and Greece.
It is said that Ignatova was murdered by Hristo Hristov on Taki's yacht in Bulgaria in November 2018, according to a local newspaper.
The alleged motive for the murder was to conceal the drug lord's involvement in the OneCoin scam
This suggests that the scam is worth much more that what it seems.
Some said that the $4 billion figure is at the lower end of the estimate of how much was stolen by the scammers, with some predicting that at least $15 billion was taken.
As for the killer, the Bulgarian news report concluded that the information was not entirely solid.
This is because the information was obtained from a large cache of documents seized from the murdered police commander, and was based upon a drunken report the commander received from an associate of the drug kingpin.