- OneCoin co-founder Karl Greenwood gets 20 years for $4 billion crypto fraud.
- Greenwood plead guilty to the scam and got a 20 year sentence.
- Co-founder Ruja Ignatova remains elusive, with a $100,000 reward.
Karl Sebastian Greenwood, a co-founder of the fraudulent OneCoin crypto scheme is behind bars. In detail, he has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos. This decision comes after Greenwood’s involvement in a massive scam that defrauded millions of global investors, resulting in losses exceeding $4 billion.
OneCoin Ltd., founded in 2014 and headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, initially portrayed itself as a groundbreaking crypto project. However, it was eventually exposed as a scam with no real value. The company operated through a vast multi-level marketing (MLM) network, enticing millions of investors with false promises and misrepresentations.
Between late 2014 and late 2016, OneCoin managed to accumulate over $4 billion from at least 3.5 million victims. Greenwood, serving as the global master distributor, played a pivotal role in the scheme’s success, earning a substantial 5% of the monthly OneCoin sales globally. This amounted to over $200 million in just two years and a staggering $300 million overall.
Specifically, Greenwood and his co-founder, Ruja Ignatova, infamously known as ‘the Cryptoqueen’, exploited Bitcoin’s reputation to lure unsuspecting investors. They presented OneCoin as a promising investment, drawing parallels between the two cryptos in their marketing materials. However, unlike legitimate cryptocurrencies, OneCoin’s value was arbitrarily determined by the company, completely detached from market dynamics.
To specify, OneCoin falsely claimed to operate on a private ‘blockchain’, even though it lacked a genuine, verifiable blockchain. By March 2015, Greenwood and Ignatova began distributing non-existent OneCoins to members, labeling them as ‘fake coins’. Email exchanges between the co-founders exposed their awareness of the absence of real mining operations.
In addition, the ill-gotten gains from the scheme funded extravagant lifestyles. Greenwood spent lavishly on luxury resorts in Brazil and Thailand, designer goods, and even a private “OneCoin” airplane. He also invested in real estate across Spain, Dubai, and Thailand.
To highlight, Greenwood was apprehended in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July 2018 and subsequently extradited to the U.S. in October 2018. He has remained in custody since his arrest.
However, Ruja Ignatova, Greenwood’s co-conspirator, remains at large. Facing charges related to OneCoin fraud and money laundering since October 2017. In fact, she disappeared after traveling from Bulgaria to Greece in the same month. Ignatova was added to the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List in June 2022, with a $100,000 reward offered for information leading to her capture.
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