onecoin-logoFollowing a decision by Finnish authorities to “monitor” OneCoin’s scamming of victims, as opposed to doing their jobs, Finnish media have recently been reporting on the Ponzi scheme.

Much of what we already knew was covered in a recent Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle) article, however specifics about OneCoin’s laundering of funds was news to us.

Following in the footsteps of Phil Ming Xu, who laundered WCM777 Ponzi funds through his sister and mother, and Steve Chen, who laundered USFIA Ponzi funds through his ex-wife, OneCoin majority-owner Ruja Ignatova is purportedly laundering invested funds through her mother.

Finnish OneCoin point man Vuorinen said that Bulgarian Rina Ignatova owns 90 percent of the OneCoin parent company. However the cash that’s being harvested in Finland and other countries flows through a different organisation.

Monies are handed over to a Bulgarian firm known as One Network Services Ltd, as Yle discovered after sifting through the Bulgarian trade register. It turned out that the Bulgarian company also owns another local business, which in turn owns a third.

The person at the end of the chain of ownership is another Bulgarian, Veska Ignatov. Yle asked Tommi Vuorinen where the money trail ends.

“Veska? Ruja’s mother,” Vuorinen responded, referring to Ruja Ignatova, an individual who has appeared in public as the Oxford-educated developer of OneCoin.

Vuorinen confirmed that the money earned from selling currency purchase options and training packages eventually went to the mother of the OneCoin company founder.

I suppose the hope is that, once regulators move in, Ignatova’s mother will do a runner and make off with a mutual retirement fund.

With OneCoin itself registered in shady Gibraltar, you can bet Ignatova has her mother stashing funds in an equally shady hidey-hole.

“Apparently, yes. This is something you can ask the company directly. I can’t say anything more about it,” he added.

While you’re at it, be sure to ask them who the mystery people are that own the other 10% of OneCoin. I’m sure they’re nothing short of reputable pillars of the MLM industry.

Estimates in the Yle article peg current investment into OneCoin at over $3 billion EUR ($3.3 billion USD). If accurate, this would eclipse TelexFree, who at $3 billion is the largest MLM Ponzi scheme bust to date.

Unfortunately however, if authorities are investigating OneCoin, for now the status of their investigation(s) is/are unknown.

What we do know however is the regulatory cleanup of OneCoin is going to be substantially messier than that of TelexFree.

In addition to recent warnings issued in Norway and Latvia, Vietnam’s Industry and Trade Ministry’s E-commerce and Information Technology Agency has issued a warning of its own.

The industry and trade ministry’s E-commerce and Information Technology Agency (VECITA) has warned consumers and investors to be cautious while purchasing virtual currencies on e-commerce websites.

Specifically, some websites, forums and social networks provide information on virtual currencies such as Swisscoin, Bitcoin, Onecoin and Gem coin, besides IL coin with offers of huge profits.

However, the State Bank of Vietnam said on February 27, 2014 that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies were not legal currency and payment tools in Vietnam.

With the exception of BitCoin, the other “cryptocurrencies” referenced are all confirmed MLM Ponzi schemes (see BehindMLM reviews of SwisCoin, OneCoin and USFIA’s GemCoin).

As per a February 27th warning issued by the State Bank of Vietnam;

The ownership, purchase and use of virtual currencies are risky and not protected by law.

In addition, VECITA said organisations and individuals should not do transactions relating to virtual currencies.

In an effort to halt the draining of OneCoin’s invested reserves, the scheme suspended affiliate withdrawals a fortnight ago.

Withdrawals requests are expected to be reinstated sometime over the next twenty-four hours. How long before OneCoin’s reserve runs dry again though is anyone’s guess.