US Federal Court Indicted OneCoin Scam Co-Founder

A newly revealed complaint disclosed an indictment of a key figure in the OneCoin digital currency Ponzi scheme on wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering charges.

Karl Sebastian Greenwood was indicted in February 2018, as indicated by court documents. OneCoin, a now well-known investment fraud, was perhaps the most notable of a slew of digital currency-centered Pomzi schemes which appeared in the last five years. Greenwood was arrested in November of that year, according to a report published by the Bangkok Post.

This indictment accuses Greenwood of conspiracy leveraged to dupe would-be investors into purchasing OneCoin packages, which purportedly could then be used to “mine” OneCoins. As in many Ponzi schemes, investors had to sell those packages and bring new people into the scheme.

According to the court documents, the endeavor brought in “over $1 billion of investors funds” between 2014 and January 2018.

Prosecutors stated:

“…GREENWOOD, and others working on his behalf, made and caused to be made false statements and misrepresentations soliciting individuals throughout the world, including in the Southern District of New York, to invest in ‘OneCoin’ a purported cryptocurrency, and instructed individuals to transmit investment funds to OneCoin depository accounts in order to purchase OneCoin packages, thereby causing individuals to send interstate and international wires representing their OneCoin investments, and resulting in the receipt of over $1 billion of investor funds into OneCoin[-]related bank accounts.”

BehindMLM.com reported that Greenwood’s pretrial conference is set for June 3.

Other figures, including leaders Ruja Ignatova and Konstantin Ignatov, have been indicted by U.S. officials, though Ignatova — the so-called “Cryptoqueen” remains at large. Ignatov was arrested in March 2018 at the time of his indictment.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said at the time:

“As alleged, these defendants created a multibillion-dollar ‘cryptocurrency’ company based completely on lies and deceit. They promised big returns and minimal risk, but, as alleged, this business was a pyramid scheme based on smoke and mirrors more than zeroes and ones.”