OneCoin loses Santander account, now using Metro Bank
OneCoin appears to have lost its Polish Santander Bank account.
The Ponzi scheme is now laundering money through Metro Bank in the UK.
OneCoin’s latest banking details see them solicit investment through the UK shell company Brixit International Limited.
The UK is notorious for failing to regulate financial fraud through easily set up domestic shell companies.
Through Brixit International Limited, OneCoin has acquired an account with Metro Bank PLC’s Southampton, London branch.
To put off detection, OneCoin investors are instructed to use a nondescript alphanumerical invoice number in the the payment description (click to enlarge):
OneCoin’s bank hopping will bring a sense of dejavu to longtime readers.
With the assistance of some of the very same readers, BehindMLM tracked similar bank hopping throughout 2016.
OneCoin briefly gave up in November 2016, after losing its Bank of Africa account.
In January 2017 it was revealed OneCoin was using an Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank account in the UAE.
When that was promptly shut down the company started using a Banco Sabadell account in Spain.
Let’s see how long OneCoin’s new UK bank account stays up for…
Brixit International Limited is one of the most interesting OneCoin money laundering shell companies ever, because I think the principals of Brixit point to very high level corruption in Bulgaria.
This might even be directly connected to bribes that allow OneCoin remain operational in Bulgaria.
The principals of Brixit International are JAN HRISTOV STOEV and PETAR DIMITROV POPOV(find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11850414/officers), who also own the company 50/50 (find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11850414/filing-history/MzIzMDQ5NjAxNmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0).
The UK Brixit is the shareholder to a company in Bulgaria called Brixit Bulgaria Ltd(bird.bg/tr/?v=view&guid=205407411), which has ELITSA GEORGIEVA MARINOVA as the manager and Petar Dimitrov Popov as the UBO.
According to Bulgarian commercial register Brixit’s are activity is “Production and marketing of alcohol and alcohol products, trade in tobacco products and timber – following appropriate registration, authorization, license or certificate when required to carry out the activity concerned; Internal and foreign trade; Commercial representation, brokerage and agency of Bulgarian and foreign natural and legal persons in the country and abroad and any other commercial activity not brought by law. “ Alas, no mention of financial education packages. 😉
Elitsa Marinova is director in number of other companies in Bulgaria, including INVEST COMPANY 2010 LTD (bird.bg/tr/?v=view&guid=201009463) that is linked to wife of a former Bulgarian prime minister Sergei Stanishev, PR agent Monica Lyubomirova Stanisheva via its shareholder Compass Communications:
offnews.bg/politika/barekov-deklarira-nad-5-miliona-leva-519817.html
The companies in which Elitsa Marinova is involved in seem to often be in media industry. In addition to be being PR agent for various governments in Bulgaria, Monika too is involved in Bulgarian media comapnies, one of which is “dir.bg” Ltd (bird.bg/tr/?v=view&guid=130243596).
This company is interesting, bevause in 2015 Dir.bg was acquired by Logo Company Ltd / LOGO – KAMPANI EOOD (mediapool.bg/logo-kampani-dava-62-mln-lv-za-da-pridobie-dirbg-news225147.html), which happens to be linked to the other principal of Brixit International, Jan Hristov Stoev (born 1990).
Along with HRISTO LYuBOMIROV STOEV & LYuBOMIR HRISTOV STOEV — probably Jan’s father and some other relative — Jan was the sharholder of the company Kremple (bird.bg/tr/?v=view&guid=201572956) that seceded into indepedent company from Logo Company in 2011 (if I interpred the commercial registry data correctly).
So their paths crossed there. So the Brixit principals have this indirect connection with each aother.
Jan’s probable relatives Hristo and Lyubomir Stoev are very interesting persons for they are linked to KGB/DS agent turned into banker Atanas Tilev via Eurohold Bulgaria Ltd.(bird.bg/tr/?v=view&guid=175187337) and DAR FINANS Ltd(bird.bg/tr/?v=view&guid=131385495).
Atanas Tilev is citizen of Finland, and was married to daughter of former prime minister Ahti Karjalainen(fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanas_Tilev).
Eurohold has also been associated with number of high profile figures from of former prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha government with links to Russian government/intelligence services facilitated corruption. and it bought Czech energy utility company CEZ summer for 335 million euros:
(bivol.bg/vassilev-tilev-evrohold.html)
btw, Ruja can be seen talking with Mr Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in this video of 2015 The Economist Fourth EU-Southeast Europe Summit:
youtu.be/TpcIDMXA5_0?t=703
So the principals of Brixit — while not directly themselves involved — point to circles close to Bulgarian elite in which these security services people associated with corruption and Russian interests are doing big time trade deals with (ex) Bulgarian politicians/officials — and it’s not impossible that OneCoin money is involved in this.
DS/KGB agents, media companies and VTB guys also smell awfully lot like US sanctioned Bulgarian politician Delyan Peevski, although I don’t have solid proof of it at the moment… 😉
My only issue is it’s Companies House. You can put anything up on there.
A problem even more so when it comes to shell companies, there’s no verification whatsoever.
Petar Popov of Brixit comes from security background, and even has a scandalous arms trading company (Armimex) in his CV:
(uk.linkedin.com/in/peter-popov-aa305190)
That address on the invoice for “Brixit” is shared with thousands, yes – thousands, of other companies.
A company formation agent called First Formations owns it and will let anyone use it for a very low annual subscription fee.
Most high street banks in the UK will not bank companies giving this as their address because of the risk.
What is so wrong with Metro Bank that they don’t have the same controls as others like HSBC, Barclays, Natwest, etc?
You also have to jump through hoops typically to get a UK bank to give you a Euro account for a new company without a proper business model.
Metro Bank, WTF?
Metro Bank has a history of… troubling accounting issues. Two years ago it was revealed that they were mis-classifying loans on their books as safer than they actually were, which in turn meant they were breaching capital adequacy requirements. All very unfortunate.
As a result they had to go cap in hand to the markets and their shares are still down 97% compared to their glory days.
The media still loves them because they’re a “challenger bank” (i.e. not one of the horrid old banks like NatWest and HSBC) and provide a water bowl for your doggy in their branches.
Whether there is any connection between Metro Bank’s desperation for cash and their opening an account for a OneCoin shell company, despite (as Stevie points out) the fact that it may as well be called Mickey Mouse Limited, is not for me to say.
Petar Popov seems to be quite an interesting person…
These people were co-shareholders (find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08731257/filing-history/MzA5NzkyNDE2MmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0) in British firm Aressec Ltd with Mr. Popov:
– Ivan Ivanov Drashkov, former deputy chairman of the State Agency for National Security,
(bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иван_Драшков)
– Ivan Dimitrov Chobanov, former head of security of Bulgarian interior ministry,
(bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иван_Чобанов)
– Jeremy Julian Joseph Phipps, Major-General with SAS background, former Director Special Forces, (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Phipps)
The fact that Mr Popov had business dealings with such people indicate that he wasn’t the most small-time player.
@Semjon
Allegedly, Petar Dimitrov Popov is a British citizen:
share-your-photo.com/78fdee6310
Another website mentions that Petar Dimitrov Popov was born in Plovdiv (Bulgaria):
share-your-photo.com/b73c97f68c
communistornot.com/en/content/petar-dimitrov-popov/1101
We remember that in July 2021 a OneCoin scam event took place in Plovdiv:
share-your-photo.com/c786635d29
It was obviously no coincidence that the scammers met in Plovdiv…
PS: Petar Dimitrov Popov’s dates of birth are not completely identical (October 1950 or September 1949?). But I am convinced that it is the same person.
@Melanie
I’m not sure at all that the Petar Popov in you picture (who seems to be a Bulgarian parlamentarian) is the same person as the person associated with Brixit companies.
This is the Brixit Popov (uploaded also in case he deletes the LinkedIn profile), and I think it’s hard to tell if it’s the same person as the person as the parlamentarian Popov:
justpaste.it/6jkng
In the Companies House filings of Aressec Ltd he mainly uses the same 10/1950 date of birth as in Brixit International, but there is at least one exception in which he suddenly uses 1952 date of birth:
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08731257/filing-history/MzE3ODc1ODMyN2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0
Perhaps just a humar error, which is possible because Companies House doesen’t even check the consistency of filed info. But it also could be that he uses different dates of birth and possibly even has correspoding ID documents. After all, he seems to be some kind of spook.
OneCoin & its promoters facing police investigation and possible prosecution in Kenya.
(nation.africa/kenya/news/judge-orders-probe-into-ponzi-like-currency-scheme-3579728 ; twitter.com/NationAfrica/status/1447503864828153860)
@ Semjon
There must be some mistake. OneLife only sells education. The OC tokens are free
@Stevie
I buy an expensive aircond operation guide book(education) and the air-cond was given free.
The company is only selling operation guide book (education).
How smart of this air-cond seller?
He’s smart. Especially if the aircon can only increase in value, he tells you, you believe him, and keep buying the same guidebook while getting your friends and family involved too.
And the air-cond seller is still keeping denial in selling air-cond.
@ Henry
You have OC worked out! Get a cut of what everyone brings in after you and you are set.
If you ever need another job, they never replaced their last “Crown Diamond”.
@Stevie
Thanks for your advice.
Thanks for sharing that Semjon. Seeing as it’s a paid article though I shortened the quote though. Not fair use if you copy the whole thing!
I’ve got an alt source that I’ll work from.
Hello Guys,
I am a journalist and I have been talking to someone from Brixit. I was wondering if you could send me the invoice and email showing them connected to OneCoin? It would greatly help the investigation.
Hi Matt, I don’t have a full copy of the invoice. I only kept what was relevant to this article (as shown in the screenshots).