OneCoin under police investigation in Finland
This one flew under the radar, but turns out back in April Finand’s National Bureau of Investigation launched an official investigation into OneCoin.
According to media reports, the NBI began investigating OneCoin after “many citizens contacted police” about the scheme.
For those unfamiliar with the agency, Finland’s NBI
is a nationwide division of Finland’s national police.
Its primary mission is to combat international, organized, professional, white-collar and other serious crime.
In conducting their investigation, the NBI are looking to answer whether or not OneCoin is a fraudulent pyramid scheme.
Given OneCoin’s Ponzi points business model, I find it hard to believe they won’t.
Being a regulatory investigation we have no timeframe as to when the NBI might conclude their investigation. But we do know that upon its conclusion, the agency will then decide whether or not to take further action against OneCoin in court.
As of May 25th, the NBI investigation is ongoing, with Central Criminal Police Detective Ari Karvonen informing Ilta-Sanomat that “the case is (still) in the study phase”. According to Karvonen, the threshold for instigating legal action against OneCoin “has not yet been exceeded”.
Police are still currently familiarizing themselves with information about OneCoin, after which decisions about the investigation moving forward will be made.
Nothing further has surfaced regarding the NBI investiation into OneCoin, with it assumed to be an ongoing case.
Stay tuned…
Update 31st October 2015 – Finnish authorities have released a statement clarifying that the results of their report into OneCoin will be released next Wednesday.
The statement was issued by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation on Twitter a few hours ago:
Original: OneCoin-virtuaalirahan selvityksestä tiedotetaan ensi viikon keskiviikkona #krp
Translation: OneCoin-the virtual currency report will be informed on Wednesday of next week #krp
Stay tuned…
Shoutout to the BehindMLM reader who sent in a heads up about this story!
from the article in Ilta-Sanomat:
Petteri Järvinen is a finnish blog writer who has been following the onecoin saga.
it is probably his coverage of onecoin in finnish which has alerted the NBI to investigate onecoin.
he compares onecoin to a finnish ponzi scheme called wincapita which ensnared 10,000 finnish citizens and was shut down by the NBI in 2008.
the promoter Hannu Kailajärvi got 5 years in jail, and it was allegedly the largest ponzi to hit finland. the investigation into wincapita lasted around an year, so that is a timeline to refer to in the investigation into onecoin by the NBI.
on 11th february,2015, Petteri Järvinen recieved a cease and desist from the onecoin Head of Legal and Compliance Department, Irina Kalinina, but he ignored it:
translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=fi&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpjarvinen.blogspot.fi%2F2015%2F02%2Fonecoin-uhkaa-oikeustoimilla-kasitys.html
That’s the second OneCoin cease and desist I’m aware of (OneCoinScam.com received one about a week ago).
Send out the legal threats and then hope nobody notices OneCoin slip into the US? Come on guys…
well soldier up oz, you may be receiving a C&D soon too 🙂
but, rujamama’s really really pushing her luck by entering the US. with hungary giving a warning, and an investigation in finland, how does she think her onecoin will escape the notice of US regulators?
Headline prediction: “OneCoin sends Cease and Desist to the SEC… doesn’t end well.”
well, according to ruja’s legal compliance workaround, she doesn’t sell any onecoin at all, but only ‘training material’ to teach people about cryptocurrencies and trading etc.
people just get the right, to give her the permission to mine onecoins on their behalf.
so there’s like no investment at all, and you all ie onecoinscam, behindmlm, and Petteri Järvinen etc are just buttcrazy guys who deserve every C&D they get!!
i’m sure she thinks the SEC will hail her POV in creating a new innovative crypto currency for the non techie common public, to beat bitcoin. will be fun to watch.
The “training material” is known to be stolen content. They can’t hide behind that statement as that will get them in trouble for copyright infringement with significant financial gain (millions and millions).
Just wait until all the different book publishers notice. They will want their per infringement fee per person per title which is a lot more than what they took in.
That is a roster of ebooks they straight ripped content from: nolink://onecoinscam.com/#plagiarism
February 2015 → June 2015 = 4 months
The next C&D letter can first be expected to be sent in October 2015. 🙂
The content of the complaint:
“I therefore would like to have that website taken down. Thank you”. 🙂
It isn’t exactly a letter from a lawyer, e.g. she didn’t say anything about why the ISP or OSP should respond to that request (the rules they should follow). She focused on what she would like personally.
Vague argument?
“Further, I doubt that they have received permission by Forbes Bulgaria to use their cover” is rather vague. She’s not in the right position to complain about that, so it simply doesn’t make any sense to include it in that letter.
If she’s in doubt about it then she should probably check it with Forbes Bulgaria, and ask Forbes to complain about it.
Valid argument?
“The site has been created with the sole purpose of damaging our trademark name and reputation and contains pure lies” may be a valid argument in a defamation case or a general tort case.
But it isn’t a valid argument in a takedown notice to a service provider.
Go Get me Dr.Ruja!
Being a lawyer I’m sure she knows exactly what it takes and I would be a bit scared to cross this women’s company, especially calling her company a scam!
I can’t wait to see them brought down!!
I seriously doubt that. I’m sure she thinks of ways of skirting regulations and playing with word semantics to stay in the gray, but she is failing at that.
1. She is trying to hide behind the “We do not sell cryptocurrency, we are in the education selling business” line. But that shield has broken since we know they are selling pirated content for insane amounts of money.
Speaking of which, the “Training Material” is extremely high-level and completely unrelated to OneCoin’s program. Ruja knows 95% of her affiliates will never read it nor understand it. “Understanding Japanese candlestick patterns” and other high-level jargon.
2. Her Charity “One World Foundation” is not a registered charity as far as we can tell, nor do they share any regulatory information such as tax exemption status publicly.
3. Her Legal and Compliance “department” sends out empty and non-binding legal threats. Ruja operating in the gray and black prevents her from actually going after people or have cooperation with companies and individuals who are on the up and up.
Ruja knows how to give the illusion of legitimacy without ever having to put her signature on anything. She thinks this will protect her, but she will still be found complicit if ever brought to Justice in “Bulgaria”.
I now know she isn’t that great of a lawyer or economist after all. She probably cheated through college knowing what she is capable of.
Do you think she would ever set foot in the US, if they open on July 4th?
Is 80% of Chinese in OneCoin? Is China open to any cryto or even mlm companies? I find the 80% hard to believe, that has been going around for months now. I say, prove it!!!!
Wow Onecoin, I spent days reading about it in past coverage by behindmlm after being offered it by an advertiser. Been waiting to see what happens and its here…
Hey, any update what’s going on? It’s mid September and any progress on the investigation?
Nothing further I’ve seen. Bear in mind regulatory investigations can take a while.
Article updated with news the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation report is due out next Wednesday.
I’ve heard, the investigation report is out. Where can i find it?
There was a blog post about it on a Finnish website over the weekend.
I haven’t seen anything official from the NBI yet. Will cover it when I do.
Local time in Finland as of the time of this comment is 10am Wednesday. The report (or a press-release) should be out later today.
Short version: NBI warns about Onecoin. No further investigation until the pyramid collapses.
poliisi.fi/keskusrikospoliisi/tiedotteet/1/0/krp_on_selvittanyt_onecoin-virtuaalirahaa_41044
Well, report didn’t say it’s illegal, so why should it collapse if people believe in it and invest in it?
The only big thing that may collapse in the end of 2016 is a currency called “dollar” and everything related to it, whitch leads to the next big financial crisis.
Onecoin seems to not invest their energy in the old system, but rather making new one. So it’s probably going very well with onecoin, or any other “new system” when the old system collapses/crumbles away.
Whose money do you think Ruha Parhiala and Sebastian Greenwood are withdrawing each month?
What, you think Ignatova has a barn full off golden egg laying geese somewhere?
As Ponzi critical mass is reached over the next 12 months watch the banking problems get worse and then withdrawals stop altogether.
As it is there’s no legitimate reason for withdrawal lead times of over a month. No legitimate banking operation takes that long to process a withdrawal request.
Very Interesting – looking forward to see, what’s going to happen in the end of 2016.
So disappointed. Still praying that the funds can be returned to all the investors… all over the world. I’m in California, USA.