A bizarre OneCoin “relaunch” website has popped up.

A video promo on the site features a DeepFakes actor playing OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova.

The OneCoin relaunch website is hosted on the domain “onelife.earth”. This domain was only recently registered on June 24th, 2021.

The domain was privately registered, hiding ownership details.

The actor playing Ruja Ignatova is seated at a white desk. She is draped in a loose-fitting bathrobe, underneath of which is a black turtle-neck.

The reason for this garb is not a coincidence; analysis of the footage suggests it is a DeepFakes video.

Hence everything but the actor’s face and masculine hands are covered in black:

You can verify this yourself by watching the video. Pay particular attention to the Ignatova actor’s chin as she speaks when sitting up [1:09].

The actor’s eyes are also dead. This  is most noticeable in the pauses of the actor’s irregular speech patterns (they are reading from a script they didn’t write).

Another tell is the lighting on Ignatova’s face. From the shadows on the back wall we can ascertain lighting is directed at the actor. No matter where DeepFakes Ruja moves her head though, the lighting cast on her face remains the same.

This is especially noticeable at the end of the video when the actor swings back in the chair.

These are current DeepFakes limitations of AI imposing Ruja’s face over the actor’s facial expressions.

If the actor was real, visually they might pass as Ruja Ignatova (at a distance), but the ruse falls apart when Ignatova speaks.

As opposed to Ruja Ignatova’s distinct deep eastern European accent, the actor’s is pitched noticeably higher.

I’m not intimately familiar with regional dialects but the actor’s accent and intonation also sounds more distinctly Russian to me too.

Production of the video (echoing, shadows) suggests it was shot on the cheap.

At the time of publication the OneCoin relaunch website is soliciting contact details of OneCoin affiliate investors.

This suggests the relaunch website is little more than a recovery scam. This syncs with actor Ruja promising a “generous reward” for those who hand over their contact details.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time scammers in eastern Europe have used an actor to front a recovery scam.

The typical recovery scam model sees scammers promise full or partial recovery to Ponzi or pyramid scheme victims.

Somewhere along the way they ask for more money (presented as a fee or some other expense).

In the case of the OneCoin recovery scam, here’s how that will play out:

[1:29] Key people from my team turned out to be traitors and I have no access to servers or funds…

[2:36] We need resources. And I want to hire the best blockchain experts…

[2:54] For this I need donations and funding from you.

Once the mark pays the scammers, nothing further happens.

If the scammers think they have a particularly gullible fish on the line, they might string the mark along and request further payments.

DeepFakes Ruja promises a “special token” to gullible investors who hand over money.

Best case scenario, you hand over scammers more money and are left bagholding some newly created shit coin.

Obviously anyone with half a brain isn’t going to fall for this. The OneCoin recovery scam appears to be pitched at easily duped uneducated simpletons.

Unfortunately this fits perfectly with those still involved in and actively promoting OneCoin.

 

Update 26th September 2021 – As a the time of this update, the OneLife Earth YouTube channel has been scrubbed of content.

The previously linked to video in this article is thus no longer available.