OneCoin class-action stayed over defendant service issues
Proceedings in the OneCoin victim class-action have hit a snag, due to difficulty in executing service on several defendants.
In order for a civil case to proceed, service must be executed on all named defendants.,
As at the time of publication, defendants OneCoin LTD, Ruja Ignatova and Sebastian Greenwood have not been served.
On August 23rd the court ordered lead plaintiff Donald Berdeaux to file a letter, informing the court of service status on OneCoin, Ignatova and Greenwood.
In Berdeaux’s filed letter it was confirmed service had not been executed.
OneCoin LTD. and Ruja Ignatova are domiciled in Bulgaria and are believed to be evading service.
Sebastian Greenwood, similarly, is domiciled in Sweden, and is believed to be evading service.
Whether Berdeaux’s attorneys are aware Ignatova was last seen in Greece back in 2017, and that Sebastian Greenwood was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the US in late 2018, is unclear.
Berdeaux’s letter also revealed permission to use alternative service (email) would be sought “in the near future”.
The same day Judge Caproni ordered Berdeaux to “file a letter on the first business day of each month updating the Court on his efforts to effect service on all Defendants who have not been served.”
Berdeaux’s filing order begins from September 3rd. In the meantime, the class-action is stayed pending further notice.
Update 4th September 2019 – A September 3rd filed letter to the court reveals that
As of the day of this letter, six Defendants remain unserved: (1) OneCoin Ltd; (2) Ruja Ignatova; (3) Sebastian Greenwoo; (4) Irina Andreeva Dilinska; (5) David Pike; and (6) Nicole J. Huesmann.
With respect to Defendants OneCoin, Ignatova, Greenwood, and Dilinska — all of whom reside in Europe — Plaintiffs intend to file a Motion for Leave to Effectuate Alternative Electronic Service upon these foreign Defendants before Plaintiff’s next status update letter is due on October 1, 2019.
As to Defendants Pike and Huesmann, these individuals — who are believed to reside in Florida — were added to the case as new parties in Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint.
Plaintiff’s counsel have engaged a process service, and service will be attempted on both Pike and Huesmann this week.
Pending any unexpected developments, our next update should be around October 1st.
Those who are stupid and greedy buy education packages from Ruja Ignatova and Sebastian Greenwood for $ 755,918.92.
share-your-photo.com/8da06b91e6
Did Donald Berdeaux attend an OFFICIAL LAUNCH PARTY from ONECOIN USA?
share-your-photo.com/26e22054c8
I don’t understand why they haven’t even been able to service “OneCoin Ltd”. After all, OneCoin has a physical address in Sofia.
If they are stonewalling any mailing attempts, shouldn’t be too hard to find someone (perhaps even government/law enforcement official) to go to the premises and get someone to sign the proof of service.
If I am not mistaken, the signatory has to be an officer of the company or it would not be considered a valid proof of service. The problem is, is anyone at the Sofia offices an officer of the company that would qualify to sign?
As for Ruja, since she is in hiding, she could be removed from the class action suit since she can’t be served; even by email if the court would allow it. There is no way in H*ll she would reply.
Something like that could have been the problem. Though, it would be surprising and ironic if for example Veselina Valkova didn’t have any authority to legally represent OneCoin in that kind of role. And she probably works at he Sofia office every day.
There might be also an issue with the entity to be serviced that the scammers may use as an legal-technical excuse to evade the servicing.
As one can see from court documents, DoJ uses “OneCoin Ltd” as a shorthand for the collection of all OneCoin related companies (OneLife, OnePayments, OneAcademy etc.) that are scattered all over the world.
It’s my understanding that there doesn’t exist an entity called “OneCoin Ltd” in Bulgaria. I think the “OneCoin Ltd” on onecoin.eu website with IC 20140882, refers to Dubai based entity (in which Velizara Ivanova is the CEO), and the Slaveykov Sqr. 6A office is, as they declare, a “OneCoin Representative office”.
One Network Services Ltd/Rilako Delta EOOD, which is pretty close being “the Corporate” in practice, is based in that address, as well as two Irina Dilkinska related companies (tr.bivol.bg/?q=БЪЛГАРИЯ гр. София 1000 . пл. Петко Рачов Славейков 6А ).
There is also sloppiness on Plaintiffs’ side: in the summons document, there is the old Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd address, not the current one in Slaveykov Sqr.:
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.515064/gov.uscourts.nysd.515064.11.0_1.pdf
So the Plaintiffs might have to correct the address and the entity (to the ONS Ltd “OneCoin Representative office”) to be able to service it proprely. But once it’s served, the can’t just ignore it, for If you fail to respond, judgment by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint.
Another way to reach them could be through Gouneva, Angelova & Atanasova Law Firm which has worked as an legal officer for OneCoin and Ignatov crime family related Bulgarian companies.
The lawyers for the plaintiff seem sloppy.
They indicate that Greenwood is domiciled in Sweden and is believed to be evading service.
Last I heard he was in jail in Manhattan awaiting Trial although there is high speculation that he has been singing like a canary and presumably has cut a deal.
Will this become more clear at the follow up review of Konstantin at the Court on 6th September 2019.
I doubt that turning States witness would allow him to leave the US but as with all OC information there is continuing obscurity.
Can anyone update us please with respect to Greenwood’s whereabouts etc
Thanks
@limericklady
There’s no information where Greenwood is.
Unofficially one of us critics got information on 22 November last year, that Greenwood is being held in New York MCC.
Some hours after that I made a Google search about Greenwood and found out everybody had completely missed the Bangkok Post news from 5th November which shortly mentioned Greenwood being cathed and extradited to USA. Then Oz made a BMLM article of it.
But the strange thing is a person named “Sebastian Greenwood” never appeared in the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, even if he indeed was in MCC.
Where Greenwood is now, there’s no information. Obviously he made somekind of deal with the US authorities, so he might be in a safehouse etc, but your guess is as good as mine.
But if someone wants to service a lawsuit to him, I think it might be possible by contacting the FBI or DOJ.
On Sebastian Greenwood and his whereabouts.
The November 2018 Bangkok Post article doesn’t mention when Sebastian was extradited to US. Based on Mark S Scott search warrant document (“Agent Affidavit in Support of Application for Search Warrant”), which is dated August 27th 2018, I think Sebastian has been in US custody at least since August 2018, but quite possibly even months earlier. I say this because the same messages between Ruja and Seb that are in Konstantin’s Complaint document appear in that August 2018 search warrant document.
(There is no 100% confirmation that Sebastian was indeed extradited to US and is now co-operating with the Feds, but the Bangkok post article in addition to the Ruja-Seb correspondence referenced in DoJ documents make it practically certain. Who else could have access to those private messages? They hardly forwarded the massages anyone else, let alone someone like Nigel Allan who became the first OneCoin “president” in 2014.)
As to why Sebastian can’t be found in BOP inmate locator is probably due to fact that he is in witness protection program. I’ve not found straightforward info on this, but I think it would be common sense that WITSEC inmates are not included in the public records. He might be still in MCC (as the rumour alleged) or moved elsewhere, perhaos even to a safehouse. If he is in witness protection, FBI probably has no duty service him any civil lawsuits.
The most unlikely scenario is that Sebastian is back in Sweden (where his last known official address probably is located) if he is co-operating with the Feds. They will not let him go until he has done snitching — and he probably will have to do some time in jail unless the Feds gave him a true sweetheart deal.
Article updated with defendant service status.
In regards to Sebastian Greenwood, if he is indeed defendant CW-1, then according to the DOJ, and I quote:
He would still be in US custody awaiting the conclusion of his cooperation (possible witness in K’s and if Ruja is ever tried, as well as Mark Scott’s case), and then would appear for his sentencing hearing.
Since the DOJ said “crimes” it makes me believe that he was charged with the same crimes as Ruja. The question would be if it was only the 3 original charges against her or the now total of 5 charges she faces.
Some updates.
Plaintiffs’ motion for alternative service (via mail and email/facebook/linkedin) upon the service-evading foreign Defendants (OneCoin Ltd, Ruja, Dilkinska) has been denied by Judge Caproni. –>
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.515064/gov.uscourts.nysd.515064.66.0.pdf
The reasons pertain to fact factual deficits:
(I’d like to also know what they have done serve the unserved defendants, for it can’t be too hard to reach a company which has a physical address in Sofia)
and:
One can see here the adresses that the Plaintiffs were trying file the lawsuits electronically or by mail: courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.515064/gov.uscourts.nysd.515064.60.0.pdf
The judge had good reason to deny the motion, because it’s unlikely that the defendants would have been reached from those addressess.
For example Irina Dilkinska (whose name still remains misspelled in their documents) no longer works for OneCoin, so why even try to reach her via onecoin email?
And the Dubai address may not be in use anymore — and I think they moved their office in Dubai at some point, so even if they have an office in Dubai, the Platinum towers address may an old one.
These Class Action law firms really need to step up their game, because it seems that they have not done their homework.
And regarding what Judge Caproni said about onecoin.eu beinfg non-operational. I had no problem accessing onecoin.eu address from European ips, but with US ip got an error message “503 Service Unavailable No server is available to handle this request”. So Onecoin is blocking all traffick from US to their site.
But there is some progress: Plaintiffs have reached Nicole J. Huesmann for there is a Notice of Appearence for her lawyer.
@Semjon
I know Ruja’s private email address. In May 2016 this email could be delivered:
share-your-photo.com/f58f891cdc
By the way, I’m still waiting for an answer from Ruja! 🙁
@Melanie
How do we know for sure that the address is really Ruja’s? Do you have some solid evidence for it?
For example, I have found Irina Dilkinska’s personal Gmail address that seems to be really her’s because it’s from the official filings she did for her B & N Consult EOOD company to the Bulgarian business register in 2016.
There is even what seems to be her Bulgarian home address.
Btw, it’s a filing where she moved the official address of the B&N to the new OneCoin “Slaveykov Sq 6A” office address from the old OneCoin “Tsar. Osvoboditel 12” address where B&N had been based from August 2015, according to Bulgarian business register.
And from 2017 onwards, Dilkinska ceased to do the filings herself — instead, they were made by the employees of law firm owned by Konstantin Ignatov’s girlfriend Kristina Gouneva.
The latest 2019 filing for B&N was made by a person who even wrote a support letter for Konstantin’s bail motion — Nicole Adelinova Atanasova.
These OneCoin criminals have small circles.
@Semjon
Below a comment from me from a German forum.
There I mentioned two email addresses of Ruja. I found them in domain registrations:
share-your-photo.com/9f885bacc3
I’m pretty sure that the latest known whereabouts of OneCoin Dubai office is/was not anymore in Platinum Tower address that the class action document refers.
I remeber a OneCoin promoter video, perhaps from late 2017 or early 2018, in which somebody (possibly Parwez Daud) says that he is in the new OneCoin Dubai office.
I can’t find that video anymore, it might be deleted. It could be even the same video where you could hear and see Velizara Ivanova running cash counting machine in the background.
But there is a OneCoin promoter video, where it’s indicated that a OneCoin office in is in “U-bura” tower: youtube.com/watch?v=1r3Rh51sdMI
If you geolocate the window views of this video (0:42-0:56 and 2:02 – 2:17) from late 2017, you’ll see that it fits perfectly with U-bora/Ubora tower area at Al Abraj Street — and not the Platinum tower area: youtube.com/watch?v=4bt__obkwbw
@Semjon
The contact details of RilaCap EOOD Bulgaria in Bulgaria and Germany, so Ruja’s contact details:
share-your-photo.com/4db1e185fe
Complement to comment #11
Correction! Ruja’s email account on Yahoo no longer exists. I just checked that:
share-your-photo.com/5f69a65f24
Is there a way to register to be part of the Class Action Law Suit?
Not at this time.