OneCoin convinces German court to release €3 mill in stolen funds
In what will probably be looked back on as a judicial mistake, OneCoin has wrangled €3 million EUR in Ponzi funds from German prosecutors.
The €3 million in question was frozen by BaFin as part of a wider €29 million EUR seizure in April 2017.
An investigation by BaFin, Germany’s top financial regulator, revealed OneCoin had laundered around €360 million EUR through Germany between 2015 and 2016.
OneCoin argued that out of the €29 million EUR seized, €3 million was generated through shell company transaction fees and shouldn’t be subject to seizure.
On appeal this argument stuck and on October 11th the Hamm Higher Regional Court ordered the €3 million in question be released.
Public Prosecutors had tried to prevent the release by issuing a new arrest order but were unsuccessful.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the court also ordered the German Treasury to pay court costs and OneCoin’s legal fees.
So why is this decision a mistake?
I’m not clued up on German law but the notion that transaction fees obtained via operation of a Ponzi scheme aren’t subject to seizure is absurd.
In addition to losses via the Ponzi scheme itself, any fees collected are also taken from victims. It’s all losses in the end, which the court should have acknowledged.
In any event OneCoin remains banned in Germany and the Bielefeld investigation continues.
The release of 3 million EUR to OneCoin means nothing for OneCoin’s affiliates, who haven’t been able to cash out since January 2017.
That does it. Germany has been cucked all the way. RIP. It was a great empire. Waiting for melanie from germany’s opinion on this.
Or maybe they are tracing the money to find the so called doctor.
On the positive side, this is rather inconvenient for the OneCoiners claiming that Germany’s investigation into OneCoin has closed.
I wonder if German prosecutors realized to bring up the Mark S Scott money laundering case to boost their argument.
If U.S prosecutors describe OneCoin as “a pyramid scheme” in relation to big scale money laundering, it must carry a lot of weight with German judges/jurors.
@Steven
My first reaction was: I’m horrified. My second reaction: Here a public prosecutor failed miserably! However, I have been registering for many years that the German jurisdiction protects the perpetrators better than the victims.
Manon Hübenthal, previously Manon Wissmann, has collected the millions for the criminal and previously convicted Ruja Ignatova and transferred to Sofia and / or Dubai. Together with Frank Ricketts. These are the facts! In order to be able to carry out the money laundering, both have founded a company in Germany:
As managing director Manon Hübenthal was named. Here the commercial register excerpt:
NOLINK://https://share-your-photo.com/953c8c4c3c
I am always surprised when a company converts millions but does not have its own website, such as IMS International Marketing Services GmbH of Manon Hübenthal and Frank Ricketts.
This is probably the reason why Manon Hübenthal seldom appears in public and therefore hardly any photos of her can be found. Here is just a photo of Manon Hübenthal from November 2016:
NOLINK://https://share-your-photo.com/eee7c92d3c
I’ll close here, but will do more on the subject.
What is surprising to me is that not one peep about this “GREAT” news has been mentioned on Igor’s blog.
If this was such great news for OC, the members there would be praising it and claiming it proves the German authorities found nothing wrong, OC is not a Ponzi, and it proves the investigation is over.
Supplement to comment #4
In the balance sheet for 2015, the IMS International Marketing Services GmbH shows only a net income of 15,450.24 euros. However, it is stated below in a footnote:
I think we all know who is behind these two “clients”. 🙂
NOLINK://https://share-your-photo.com/6d7a36955e
For 2016, Manon Hübenthal has changed the accounting method. The IMS International Marketing Services GmbH now had cash and cash equivalents of 29,056,563.62 euros.
NOLINK://https://share-your-photo.com/3dc64877d2
These are bombastic numbers, considering that Manon Hübenthal founded her company only with equity of 25,000 euros. Hopefully, the tax office responsible will scrutinize these balance sheets, as the liabilities are said to be EUR 29,070,904.51 higher than the liquid assets.
Is Manon Hübenthal working for air and love? This is of course practical, because who – allegedly – makes no profits, must pay no taxes. Taxes pay only the stupid anyway.
@Melanie
My analysis is different, but overall it looks very fishy to me.
Your first pic shows that in the 2015 Financial statement the company didn’t put the 13 million sum, which declared in a footnote to be clients’ money, into the balance sheet. This is in contradiction to your second pic, the 2016 financial stament, which shows in the year 2015 comparison column radically different numbers than what the declared in the first picture for the year 2015
For example, in 2015 the toal equity is now -5782, indicating losses when in the earlier statement it was +33 569 indicating profit. And the 13 million sum is now found in company’s coffers and liabilities – not anymore clients’ money.
I don’t undestand why the numbers are so much different, perhaps they changed the 2015 financial statement afterwards and only the old one is found in the public registry – anyway, the radical change alone is a huge red flag.
In 2016 they took another big, almost 16 million cash injection (a loan) to the coffers (and thus increasing liabilities by the same amount). Why does a marketing service company need such a big cash mountain? I have never seen that lquid assetts make 98% of the balance sheet total sum. There seems to be something odd going on…
@Semjon
We both do not know how Manon Hübenthal manipulated the balance sheets. I am convinced that the balance sheets have not been prepared correctly. Why? Because it is absolutely unusual that a balance sheet is changed later. On the following screenshot you can see that Manon Hübenthal made corrections:
NOLINK://share-your-photo.com/3fceb3a380
I am not a financial accountant, but I studied business administration and then learned how to prepare correct balance sheets. In German, I could very quickly explain my arguments to you, but it is very difficult for me to explain that in English. Sorry!
I think that Manon Hübenthal received most of her commissions from Ruja Ignatova in cash. Probably only a small part of it has been recorded in the balance sheets.
Last night Kralev cars managed to sell same car three times:
NOLINK://i.imgur.com/M9QWjPw.png
<SARCASM>
That’s quite an achievement, the technological superiority of DealShaker platform is beyond all human comprehension.
“Duplication is everything.”
–Juha Parhiala, OneCoin Crown Diamond.
</SARCASM>
25th October 2018: OneCoin still under investigation in Germany, chief prosecutor of Bielefeld Gerald Ryubzam confirms Ruja Ignatova among suspects!
Suspicions of: Fraud, money laundering,pyramid sales,financial services and payment service without permission.
[Google translation from the Capital article]:
https://www.capital.bg/biznes/kompanii/2018/10/25/3333513_germanski_sud_vurna_na_onecoin_blokirani_3_mln_evro/
Please note the bg->en Google Translation issue: Bielefeld chief prosecutor correct spelling: Gerald Rübsam.
There’s another translation issue in the Capital article, which I asked Nickolay to clarify, because I saw already OneCoiners getting wrong impressions:
Crypto Xpose: Can you clarify this sentence [The first], the translation is not best possible: “На 11 октомври Висшият регионален съд на Хам се е произнесъл в полза на обвиняваната, че функционира като пирамида, OneCoin и е присъдил да се отблокират около 3 млн. евро. ”
Nickolay Stoyanov: Hey there… Well, the meaning is: On October 11th, the High Regional Court of Hamm ruled in favour of OneCoin, which is often accused that it functions as a pyramid, and decided to unblock about 3 mn euro.
Crypto Xpose: Thank you. The bad Google/Bing translations gave a false impression like that the court decided something about OneCoin being a pyramid or not, which obviously was not the case.
(Ozedit: Twitter link 404 as of July 2019)
So much for the “German” investigation being over and they found that OC had done nothing wrong that Igor likes to keep claiming. This one had to hurt his ego and being exposed for telling a falsehood. Igor doesn’t lie, he told me so. He just says a lot of things that are not true.
Just as he had everyone of his followers believing that the “German Investigation” was over and nothing was found against OC, blows that story to shreds.
Can hardly wait to see how he tries to spin himself out of this one, and Lord knows he will do his best to do so. My bet is on he claim this is just the prosecutor trying to buy time, so he can save face when he “officially” announces they found nothing on OC.
Aw shucks. He went with the Yellow Journalism angle because Capital Weekly only writes negative articles about Ruja and OneCoin.
Yes, because real journalists publish supportive articles about Ponzi schemes.
Where is this media that supports scams like OneCoin?
Hey Melanie from Germany,
Do you maybe have any website, blog, or whatever where we can read what you write about onecoin, or are you writing just here?
@yclick
Before I answer your question: Do you speak German? Then we could communicate via email.
German is not my native language, but i’m living in germany 🙂
Okay, please contact me via email:
NOLINK://https://share-your-photo.com/14eb5d308b
The notorious law firm Schulenberg & Schenk from Hamburg has proudly reported on this case on its second website mlmrecht.de (in German and English).
web.archive.org/web/20181224143625/http://mlmrecht.de/2018/10/22/erfolg-fuer-servicedienstleister-der-onecoin-firmen-vor-dem-olg-hamm/