High profile Italian lawyer investigated for OneCoin laundering
Luca Di Donna, an Italian lawyer with ties to former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, is under investigation for OneCoin money laundering.
Di Donna (right) stands accused of overseeing several Italian companies, through which he collected nearly €700,000 EUR in fees.
The fees were paid by “Bulgarian companies”, operating as fronts for OneCoin.
The implication being that Di Donna was laundering money for the $4.6 billion Ponzi scheme.
The Financial Intelligence Unit’s anti-money laundering division launched an investigation.
They found “hundreds of thousands of euros” had passed through bank accounts tied to Di Donna. The funds had arrived from abroad, through real-estate companies in Ireland.
In November 2019 Konstantin Ignatov, former OneCoin CEO and brother of founder Ruja Ignatova, testified that part of OneCoin’s money laundering operations was conducted through the Bank of Ireland.
Italian investigators allege in July 2018, Di Donna
benefited from a bank transfer from Sofia: € 321,000 paid by B&N Consult Eood.
It was not the only payment: four months later, at the end of November, a new donation of almost 365 thousand euros arrived on the account of the lawyer.
Reason for “final payment on success fee ”, reads the report. Translated: “Final payment for goal achieved”.
What objective it is is not specified.
The US DOJ has identified B&N Consult Eood as a party of interest in criminal proceedings against Ruja Ignatova.
B&N Consult Ltd., presumably a related entity, was also cited in Mark Scott’s $400 million OneCoin money laundering case.
In practice, within a hundred days, the friend of the prime minister “therefore received a total of € 685,786 from B&N Consult, presumably by way of payment for services,” the financial investigators write.
The B&N Companies were set up and owned by OneCoin insider Irina Dilkinska. After OneCoin collapsed in early 2017, control was transferred to Aleksandar Boychev Stavrev, an associate with ties to Ruja’s husband.
The revelations by investigators form part of a wider investigation into Di Donna, who is accused of mask grifting during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Di Donna is said to have leaned on his connection to Prime Minister Conte to generate interest in his business venture.
As I understand it, Di Donna’s business partners initiated the investigation by filing a complaint.
Di Donna claims his
accusers have invented false circumstances and lies “which will soon be demonstrated in front of the investigators”.
When questioned on the matter, Prime Minister Conte stated Di Donna was “no longer an associate”.
Cris Cristi & Luka Miatton shitting pants yet?
We can only hope.