The “Cryptoqueen,” the fugitive founder of OneCoin, and three of her friends have appeared before a German court on charges of fraud, money laundering, and banking offenses.
A Munich-based attorney with ties to Ignatova is accused of transferring $19.7 million via the Cayman Islands on her behalf in order to buy two London residences when they appear in court on October 18th.
In addition, according to a Bloomberg report, a husband and wife are also accuses with allegedly processing $315.4 million in payments from OneCoin clients.
OneCoin was first introduced by Ignatova in 2014 as a cryptocurrency and trading initiative. However, it was quickly discovered to be a pyramid scam that lured people in with fraudulent business and technological promises that were false such as a token mining system that was nonexistent, according to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The FBI claims that the operation duped over 3 million investors out of almost $4 billion. Prosecutors in the German court noted that:
In reality, the ever-growing value was a fake and the mining process was only simulated by the software.
Since 2017, Ignatova’s whereabouts have remained a mystery; her last known whereabouts were said to be in Athens, Greece. However, the FBI added her to its list of the ten most wanted people in June and offered a reward of $100,000 for information leading to her capture.
Angelina Lazar, an economist and supporter of cryptocurrency, has accused her firm of bribing the presidents of Serbia and Bulgaria in addition to being sought for fraud totaling over $4 billion.
The OneCoin Scam Just Got Three New Suspects
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 newest three OneCoin figures to be charged with crimes add to that case.
Hamilton’s extradition to the United States was authorized by a British judge in August 2021, and it was reported that he was extradited in the beginning of September.
Moreover, Konstantin Ignatov, the brother of Cryptoqueen, briefly gained control of OneCoin. In 2019, he admitted guilt to a number of offenses relating to fraud and money laundering. In addition, two of his colleagues were the defendants in a class action lawsuit that went to trial in March 2020.
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Additionally, according to author and journalist Jamie Bartlett, who hosts a popular podcast on the Cryptoqueen case through the BBC and has so far released 11 episodes, the story of the missing Cryptoqueen continues to be of great interest.
Nevertheless, a book about the entire incident publishes by Bartlett in June under the title The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It. At the Red Line Festival in South Dublin on October 16, there was a public discussion of the book.
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