The “Cryptoqueen,” the fugitive founder of OneCoin, and three of her friends were brought before a German court on charges of fraud, money laundering, and banking offences, as reported by Cointelegraph.
According to Cointelegraph, Ignatova’s connection to a Munich-based attorney who testified in court on October 18 is accused of transferring $19.7 million to the Cayman Islands on her behalf in order to buy two London apartments. In addition, according to a Bloomberg story, a husband and wife are accused of managing $315.4 million in payments from OneCoin users.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports that Ignatova launched OneCoin in 2014 under the guise of a cryptocurrency and trading project, but it was soon discovered to be a pyramid scheme that lured users in with false business and technical claims that were untrue, such as a token mining structure that was nonexistent.
The initiative cheated more than 3 million investors out of about $4 billion, according to the FBI, with prosecutors stating in the German court that, “In reality, the ever-growing value was a fake and the mining process was only simulated by the software.”
Cointelegraph further noted that prosecutors have already taken action against one other suspected collaborator, Christoper Hamilton, who is accused of laundering $105 million through the scam in 2014. The latest three OneCoin figures to be charged with crimes add to that case.
Hamilton’s extradition to the United States was authorised by a British judge in August 2021, and it was reported that he was extradited at the beginning of September.
(With insights from Cointelegraph)
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