OneCoin abandon US operations
It hasn’t been a good for week for OneCoin.
It started off with complaints from affiliates who hadn’t been paid for a month. Then came the abrupt announcement that OneCoin was changing its bank.
It was later revealed that the change of banks occurred after the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission issued a warning against OneCoin investment.
Almost $200,000 was stolen from an affiliate who dared to question why they weren’t getting paid, and new mandatory recruitment criteria was introduced to stop affiliates who didn’t promote OneCoin from withdrawing funds.
Now the situation continues to deteriorate, with news that OneCoin have formally abandoned their US operations.
The announcement was made on OneCoin’s Facebook page, issued roughly an hour ago:
Until all matters are clarified, we need to temporarily suspend new registrations from the USA.
OneCoin trading will be also restricted for this time period. We also kindly ask all our affiliates to not market the concept during events and through other media.
The move comes after just a few months ago, OneCoin announced they were officially launching in the US.
Reasons cited for the termination of US operations are sketchy at best, with OneCoin citing an unrelated decision by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission last month:
On September 17th, 2015 the CFTC defined Bitcoin and all other legitimate cryptocurrencies as commodities, and put them all under the same regulations.
This is a great step towards making cryptocurrency more legitimate and tangible as well as more tradeable.
OneCoin examines the new developments with our legal team – if and what licenses will be needed for the company to operate and respect all rules and new regulations. We also strive to register with the SEC in the next time.
For starters, OneCoin is not a cryptocurrency. It cannot be traded for anything outside of OneCoin itself (including the various inhouse ventures OneCoin operate), nor can members of the general public acquire the coin.
Secondly, the decision cited has nothing to do with OneCoin’s soliciting investment in the US.
CFTC Orders Bitcoin Options Trading Platform Operator and its CEO to Cease Illegally Offering Bitcoin Options and to Cease Operating a Facility for Trading or Processing of Swaps without Registering
In First Action against an Unregistered Bitcoin Options Trading Platform, CFTC Holds that Bitcoin and Other Virtual Currencies Are a Commodity Covered by the Commodity Exchange Act.
OneCoin do no offer BitCoin options, nor do hey operate a swaps platform.
So what’s the real reason OneCoin are abandoning the US?
Well, the mention of the SEC is a pretty solid giveaway.
OneCoin offer unregistered securities globally, with newly invested funds used to pay off existing investors.
In addition to problems with local Bulgarian regulators, there’s a good chance OneCoin has tripped money laundering filters with US financial institutions. And this has no doubt placed them on the regulatory radar.
Pre-empting a shutdown, OneCoin no doubt hope that ceasing to solicit investment from within the US will fend off regulators. They’re probably also hoping that by cutting off transactions from US banks, that their new bank won’t terminate their accounts in alarm.
Whether or not that ploy works out for them remains to be seen. But in the meantime two facts can not be ignored:
Firstly, BitCoin and cryptocurrencies are totally legal in the US.
Secondly, if OneCoin feel they can’t operate legally in the US, they are all but confirming to their investors they are running a Ponzi scheme.
SEC registration is a matter of filing paperwork, so any notion that this is some sort of drawn-out process is a bald-faced lie.
Looking forward, the status of OneCoin’s US investors and what is to become of their OneCoin balances is unclear. Ditto the planned Las Vegas event on October 16th.
Stay tuned…
Update 7th October 2015 – In a US affiliate call held overnight, Sal Leto has confirmed OneCoin have cancelled the Las Vegas event.
Same day they terminated my account, I Sent everything I had to the SEC after reading the article from here.
ethanvanderbuilt.com/2015/06/29/onecoin-scam-comes-to-the-usa/
I doubt I was the only person who has been doing so, so maybe enough people did it to have them at least do an inquiry on it. Sent dates and advertisement also of the plans for the Events for the US as well.
In a related ruling, Bitcoin was deemed property (a commodity) by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (the national tax authority)
As far as US tax law goes, Bitcoin etc is viewed as a crypto-commodity, rather than a currency.
That’s the law OneCoin are citing in their attempts to hide from regulators.
oz, you have incited that blazing idiot ken labine into punishing the whole world with a never ending youtube video about how onecoin has not abandoned the US and how the las vegas event is not cancelled but ‘postponed’.
i sat through the first 20 minutes and i challenge anyone to outdo me. you shall gag and die.
unlike oz and other ‘dirtball’ bloggers, who only publish anti onecoin stuff for getting ad viewership, the Honorable ken labine claims he actually does ‘research’ to back his claim.
the ‘research’ was a link to two articles- 1] a 2014 article which said the US treated cryptocurrency like property and 2] a 2015 article which says that the US now treats cryptocurrency like a commodity.
after guffawing several times from sheer pride in his own ‘research’, labine concludes that ‘my lady’ ruja ignatova has suspended the US operations because she has to change ‘the paperwork’ and ‘pay fees’ for onecoin to suit the new definition of a commodity, in the US.
questions for labine:
– what frigging paperwork? please explain what all paperwork ruja mama filed in the US before her ‘underground’ slithery launch there? is onecoin registered with the SEC? is onecoin registered in any US state to do business?
– which frigging fees? which agency has to be paid a fees to allow onecoin to work in the US?
hello, ken labine ‘liar extraordinaire’, answer the above two questions or swear off your silly youtube videos forever.
and why doesn’t labine address the question of the bulgarian FSC issuing a onecoin warning? and hey labine, what happened to the onecoin bulgarian accounts? and why are onecoin reps crawling all over FB asking to be paid?
don’t fill over one hour videos with nonsense, answer relevant questions!
now, i call ruja ignatova, Ruja Mama, because she’s a plump middle aged matronly kind.
who was to know that ken labine Seriously looks up to ruja mama as his er, ‘mother’ because she y’know, looks after all her little onecoin babies like a bigfat mama bear.
at this point^^ you may gag too, and stop listening to his embarrassing drivel.
i’m saying this out of sheer necessity, because i perceive clear and present danger stalking ‘certain’ bloggers, who have unfortunately ‘awoken the beast’ that lurks in ken labine and he’s ‘coming for you!!’.
yes, in public interest, i listened to some more labine crapology.
i have a suggestion for labine, since onecoin is on its way to deadville, he can lend his youtube talents for Prison Torture.
prison inmates misbehave? shut them up in a room with a labine litany! recipients will be reduced to a mindless putty. guaranteed to work!
I accepted the challenge, and listened to 40:34 of it = exactly half of the 1:21:08 video.
youtube.com/watch?v=F5mx-Qu9-9c
I have no idea about what he was trying to tell the world. But now I have politely linked to two of his videos, so he has actually got all the attention he deserve this year.
* OneCoin didn’t abandon the U.S. market, it was put on “Pause”.
* OneCoin Las Vegas Event wasn’t cancelled, it was “postponed”.
* He didn’t mention any payment issues in the first 40 minutes.
* Ken Labine’s idea of research seems to be about “reading, talking, talking, talking, talking”.
I’m still confused as to what paperwork there is he keeps going on about. For all the research he professes he does, has he actually called up the CFTC to verify anything has or needs to be filed?
“BitCoin” hasn’t filed any paperwork… it’s business as usual. Have the public exchanges (who weren’t doing something dodgy to begin with)?
With what agency is this commodity paperwork purportedly being filed with? Why haven’t specifics been released by OneCoin to their affiliate-base?
The answer is nothing is being filed, with it just being smoke and mirrors to put as much distance between the SEC and OneCoin as possible.
Filing with the SEC meanwhile is about as long as it takes to fill in some forms, yet we’ve been hearing about that for months.
Amazing how Labine keeps talking about how smart Ruja is, but he doesn’t seem to see in what way she is smart.
She is smart at scamming people, and that is about it.
I can’t condemn the man for following OneCoin while it seemed like it may have a had a miniscule chance of being legit. Now though, it is clearly a scam, through and through, and he should’ve jumped off the bandwagon while he had a chance.
At least he might’ve maintained a small amount of trust from those he’s recruited if he let them know that it’s a scam, but now his future MLM recruitments will fall a lot faster.
Motivated reasoning, much like that poster in Mulder (X-files) office: “I want to believe”.
Once they’re committed to the idea, sunk cost fallacy takes over, i.e. I have to keep on believing.
The only thing he has detected is that she is smarter than he is. Ruja is probably smarter than Ken Labine. 🙂
What are the chances Bulgarian or EU authorities are already on them?
This sort of “let’s restrict everything” was typical when the scheme figured out it was being investigated.
Zeek started canceling events left and right 3 weeks or so before it was shut down.
Gemcoin started issuing denials about 2-3 weeks before it was raided.
Obviously I’m talking about US schemes, as we haven’t seen an international bust yet (Profitable Sunrise doesn’t count, that thing was so virtual it’s almost hilarious how big it got)
WCM777 abandoned the US in October 2013. Massachusetts filed the first regulatory action against the company the next month.
I’m not saying that’s a timeline to follow for OneCoin, but it’s been my observation that MLM opportunities don’t run away from the US unless they’re made aware of pending regulatory enforcement.
There’s no “EU authorities”, i.e. European Union is about something different than United States of America. It’s about trade, labour … and … something.
It means that countries can join the union and they can leave the union, or they can be half-in-half-out through treaties (just like Switzerland and Norway).
It’s originally based on “3 freedoms” = free movement of goods (trade), people (work force), capital (investments, etc.). It has some extensions beyond that original one, e.g. the monetary union.
[back to topic]
The Bulgarian FSC has already decided that it doesn’t have the correct authority to investigate OneCoin, it only has the authority to place it on a warning list. It will probably share information with relevant civil authorities in other European countries (e.g. Finland and Sweden).
Police authorities in Finland probably have an active investigation. They will probably contact police authorities in relevant European countries (Sweden and Bulgaria).
The main organizers seem to be from Bulgaria, Sweden and Finland. There may be some co-organizers from other countries.
I have tried to estimate OneCoin’s growth in number of members earlier, based on Alexa rank and other factors. Here’s some additional material:
Compared to other websites, using the same tool …
The conclusion here is that most OneCoin members either are fake or duplicates = members with multiple accounts, but counted by OneCoin as multiple members to look bigger than it really is.
The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation is going to inform by the end of this month whether their investigation is turning into criminal investigation.
The source: blogger Petteri Järvinen:
i.imgur.com/klrR87V.png
twitter.com/petterij/status/652089345013383168
How did you reach that conclusion?
I would easily guess as an average most people in Onecoin has 2-3 accounts.
I had a tycoon and 4 smaller 130 euro packs i used initially to set up points later if the MLM side went how I wanted and the company grew with the “crypto-currency” I could use off the power leg to get immediate weak side bonus.
I know most of Malaysia was buying packs of 3 per member to qualify for the MLM side for matching bonuses etc.
I have checked OneCoin’s Alexa rankings regularly since June / July 2015. OneCoin has claimed to have doubled the number of affiliates, while the rankings only have showed a very slow growth.
Example, post #520, June 30th 2015:
The current source estimated only 100K daily visitors, compared to OneCoin’s claims about >600K members.
Related websites, e.g. the USA Team onecoinrevolution.com, also have poor Alexa rankings (too low to be displayed in that “Easy Counter” tool).
STILL don’t understand how comparing Onecoin Alexis traffic with a weather channel, behindmlm and the Boston Globe results in a conclusion “that OneCoin members either are fake or duplicates.”
I compared onecoin.eu with some known websites to check that the statistics were “on target” or “within acceptable range” — that the estimates were relatively reliable. It’s enough if either unique visitors or pageviews are “within range”.
Not in the UN sense, no. I know Europol is like Interpol… info exchange, not enforcement. What I meant was local authorities within the EU. For example, Spain was pretty darn quick in placing USFIA on the “warning list” (back in May 2015).
Thanks for the update Onecapita, let’s see if anything comes of it.
Are you using a secret algorithm?
There’s no “secret algorithm”.
“Fake or real members?” have been discussed for several months. We already know that many users have multiple accounts, and we already know that OneCoin has added members “randomly” from time to time.
ok they have multiple accounts. how do you tell that from looking at Alexa numbers?
I didn’t say anything about “Alexa as the only source”.
Post #787 BEN, August 7:
Post #959 M Norway, August 31:
Plus tens of other posts, maybe 50 or 100 posts. People have posted relevant info for months.
Oops, I posted the wrong part of that comment …
Perhaps i misunderstood. Did you mean that the Alexa statistics corroborated your conclusion?
If so, how do the Alexa statistics support that conclusion?
@Hoss
If you look at post #14, the one you’re asking questions about, it says …
I have checked
* Alexa regularly since June or earlier.
* Youtube for views and followers (#350).
* Ben’s member statistics posts.
* marketing methods, e.g. multiple forum posts (#343)
* CoinVegas’ number of users the first 5 days (#327).
* the Conligus/OneCoin merger (#337)
* xcoinx.com.
* onecoinrevolution.com (Team USA).
* OneCoin in Norway.
Plus many other details. I can’t list them all.
Good work.
You might want to google translate this:
capital.bg/biznes/finansi/2015/09/04/2603688_doktor_ruja_i_praveneto_na_pari_ot_nishto/
.. and this pjarvinen.blogspot.fi/2015/10/onecoin-kayttajasopimus-kopioitu.html
The takeaways from that article are
1. the third-party auditor quit in August (because they wanted to protect their reputation and not be named in Ponzi litigation later).
2. This European conference thing coming that Ignatova is speaking at, OneCoin are a “platinum sponsor” = pay money get some stage time.
Affiliates in the US are still holding mini-events and slinging onecoin. Saw one just tonight.
I remember mention of a “strategy” for US OneCoin investors going forward. I take it this is committing identity fraud and signing up a new non-US account?
Any chance there was mention of that at the event?
Some “background info” related to the Conligus/OneCoin merger.
German source MLM Network News — but most of it is in English.
sunsetfm.de/conligus-vermutlich-nun-entgueltig-pleite/
It’s an email to the members from June 2015 about a controlled liquidation of Conligus.
“Blame it on attacks by cyber criminals” is commonly used as an excuse when a Ponzi scheme has collapsed. 🙂
That was my impression too. 🙂
I have seen a couple of “mini events” when I searched for “OneCoin Vegas Event” on the internet. But they were from more than a month ago.
Here’s one of them, limited to 45 people.
facebook.com/events/940882412657929/
13 guests had signed up for the event. 2 “maybe”. 186 invited.
And so it begins….. maybe people should have listened when we tried to warn them months ago with the FAKE FORBES MAGAZINE COVER!!!!
tisk tisk tisk… I hate to be the one who says it… but we told you so!
Educational youtube video. OneCoin member upset with U.S. abandonment:
youtube.com/watch?v=TW3–jrxc_8
Tim, the link is dead
I’m still able to see it. Maybe my first post cut some off the url.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW3–jrxc_8
I believe this is the correct link to the video that Tim was talking about. youtube.com/watch?v=TW3–jrxc_8
If US ops have been abandoned, affiliates didn’t get the memo. I see they’re still holding mini events and signing people up.
I hear they’re using fake addresses to sign them up. Not US addresses.
I am told this by an affiliate who still tries to recruit me from time to time.
So much for KYC…
Single Coin is not selling from many weeks.
I believe that based on their model and proven by actual facts OneCoin is using money from New Investors to fund their operations.
A few examples:
1. pay interest of up to 500 % per year
2. pay commissions when their Sales Reps convince friends to pay up to 27,500 EUROs for plagiarized educational material
3. pay for elaborate Birthday Parties
4. Travel costs
5. Office rents
6. reported 30 Million Dollar real estate purchases
However, there is another issue that I have with the Ponzi Pumpers here in the USA and Canada.
OneCoin officially PULLED OUT of the USA markets. And, they didn’t Register to do Business here in the USA. Plus, I doubt that they ever Registered in Canada either.
How is it that OneCoin Investment Advisors are STILL (legally) doing business here in the USA?
And for proof, here is a post announcing a OneCoin Investment Oppertunity meeting with misleading title (education).
________________________________________
Carl Wilt at Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. May 25 at 5:25pm
Shortly we will be having a digital currency dinner and education seminar at Opryland Hotel.
________________________________________
A short list of OneCoin Promoters in the USA and Canada:
Leilani Braund
Tom McMurrain
Sarah McGee
Glenn Smith
Carl Wilt
Ken Labine – Canada
Kevin Foster
Sheri Hilliard-Pearce
Jason Richard Mangan
Joseph W Piper
Jodi Tressler Greene
Keith Bliss
Stan Harris
Mike DiGaetano
Michael Latasha DeArmond
Jeff Shofner
John Reilly
Greg Knox
Ray Lopez
Bob Byrum
Willie Tubbs
Kaytee Godiva
Brent Patrick
Are these people running the risk of promoting a company in the USA/Canada that’s not even Registered to do business?
ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
We know that OneCoin has Independent contractors or other representatives in Tennessee. But what are they actually selling?
Are OneCoin Reps selling Unregistered Securities or unlicensed Educational Packages?
If it’s determined (as I believe) that the main focus of OneCoin is the PASSIVE Rate of Return, then our favorite Coin Artists are guilty of selling unregistered securities.
If we give them the benefit of (HUGE) doubt about selling Unlicensed Educational Packages, who is collecting the State Sales Tax in Tennessee, for example?
It will be interesting to see what Carl Wilt and others are doing with the money (7% in TN) that is supposed to be sent to the State.
taxjar.com/states/tennessee-sales-tax-online/
CALL 1-855-800-6681 for information on this matter.
Stay tuned!
UPDATE ON ONECOIN USA:
Someone on a popular MLM message board asked if OneCoin was available in the USA. Here is the first response:
Hmmmmmm…… “trigger federal regulators”
Then, the obvious questions is, why are the following OneCoin investors (see list below) also RECRUITING in the USA?
Here’s How!
Followed by:
Seeing an opportunity to recruit another investor and earn his commission, Andrejs B. says:
So, these Coin Artists geniuses know it’s illegal to promote OneCoin in the USA but have decided to circumvent the law by using an offshore address!
And here’s the astonishing part. Even though they know OneCoin is not allowed in the USA, they publicly state how the con works (ON A PUBLIC SOCIAL MEDIA SITE) for all to see using their REAL NAMES!! 🙂
Here’s an up to date list of OneCoin promoters in the USA:
Tom McMurrain
Kevin Foster
John Reilly
Carl Wilt
Ken Labine – Canada but actively recruiting in the USA
Sarah McGee
Glenn Smith
Jason Richard Mangan
Joseph W Piper
Keith Bliss
Stan Harris
Mike DiGaetano
Michael & Latasha DeArmond
Jeff Shofner
Greg Knox
Ray Lopez
Bob Byrum
Brent Patrick
Jodi Tressler Greene
Leilani Braund
Sheri Hilliard-Pearce
Willie Tubbs
Kaytee Godiva
Beverly Washington
Sandy Davis
Tory Bailey
Mark Halbig
Margie Scott
Erik Enriquez
Jack Palis
Patricia Ann
Jeff Litzenberger
Barbara Lloyd
Lucille Bolton Shannon
Alan C. Delaney
Andy McCormack
Rick Harris
Joseph A Mitchell
Katherine Clement
Erick Brent
Ellis Vernon
Donna Thomas-Taylor
Dean Hackney
Tom Cao
I see our favorite Coin Artists like to promote their OneCoin Sign Up links in attempt to attract more investors into their “family” and thus earning a commission.
I’d like to add one of my favorite links. And, it’s about “commission” too:
SEC – Securities and Exchange COMMISSION!
sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm
So, which “commission” link will still be active in a year?
Any bets?
I bet my “username” that ALL OneCoin links will be gone within the year – no doubt about it. If not, I will never post here again.
Any takers?
@MLM Broken Model
Wow. Good update! Useful documentation.
Most of the above are fairly easy to contact via either FB or LinkedIn, several with direct phone numbers when!!! I’ve been “hung up” our mysteriously “disconnected” on by several already 😉
The Joseph A Mitchell FBook Page is worth many laughs. Poor fool.
Add Richard Marks of Boca Raton Florida to the list of Fraudsters still selling in USA… he actually tells them to lie on the application about their address.
Has them use there correct address… then tells them to us US Virgin Islands as their country…. SO OF COURSE ALL ONECOIN HAS TO DO JUST TO SIMPLY KEEP THIER MONEY IS CLAIM YOU LIED ON YOUR APP WE DO NOT SELL IN USA AND HAVENT SINCE OCT 2015.
600 CLINETS AND COUNTING NO REAL TELLING EXACTLY HOW MUSCH MONEY NOR WERE IT WENT….