The witness testimony of Konstantin Ignatov
If you ever wondered what day to day life was like in a $4 billion dollar Ponzi scheme, Konstantin Ignatov’s witness testimony is probably your best bet.
BehindMLM reader WhistleBlowerFin has graciously made available transcripts from Scott’s trial late last year.
In addition to his pre-trial testimony and live reporting from the Inner City Press, the following testimony is from Mark Scott’s November 2019 trial.
Konstantin Ignatov was questioned by the DOJ and cross-examined by Mark Scott’s attorney Arlo Devlin-Brown.
I’ve done my best to quote the transcript with minimal editing. There is some overlap between Konstantin’s pre-trial testimony and Inner City Press’ reporting, but I’ve done my best to minimize it.
When combined, I believe all three sources make for compelling reading to anyone who’s been following OneCoin.
OneCoin’s blockchain audit reports were fraudulent
Despite evidence to the contrary, OneCoin long held it’s blockchain was audited.
An audit report was made available on OneCoin’s website. Naturally no specifics were provided, with the report coming off as little more than an “everything is legit” rubber stamp.
As part of his defense, Mark Scott’s attorneys wanted to present the jury with a copy of one of the audits.
The day prior, Konstantin Ignatov testified that the audit report was “fraudulently prepared”.
Didn’t Mr. Ignatov testify yesterday that this report was prepared, it was fraudulently prepared, and it was put up on the website?
MR. FOLLY: Your Honor, he did.
Note that the topic of audit legitimacy has come up before, following subpoenaed emails revealing fake coins were part of OneCoin’s fraud.
Despite the provided blockchain audit report being fake, ultimately the court allowed the defense to admit it as evidence (with respect to Scott’s state of mind, not whether the report was legitimate or not).
After Ruja Ignatova disappeared OneCoin’s IT staff, cited as “Momchil and Ivan”, confessed to Konstantin ‘that the blockchain is not exactly what it should be.‘
During an afternoon of drinking at the office a few months later, Irina Dilkinska told Konstantin that OneCoin had “distributed more coins than were mined”.
Dilkinska likened soliciting investment from OneCoin investors to “selling people air”.
Konstantin Ignatov faked contact with Ruja after her disappearance
After Ruja Ignatova disappeared in October 2017, her brother Konstantin took her place as the head of OneCoin.
In this role, Konstantin regularly claimed to be in contact with Ignatova. This lead to multiple excuses covering up her disappearance.
In his testimony, Konstantin admitted he lied about having contact with his sister.
Q. During this time period (after Ruja disappeared), were you in touch with Ruja?
A. No.
Q. Did you make representations that you were in touch with Ruja?
A. Yes, I did.
I was, for example, presenting at OneCoin events, mentioning that I’m still in touch with Ruja, that she’s still in the decision-making process involved.
Q. Why did you make those representations?
A. In front of the network so that everybody thinks that everything in the company is still going, and everything is okay.
Q. Who did you make those representations that you were still in touch with Ruja to?
A. To everybody except my parents.
After a fraud conviction in Germany, Ruja fled to Bulgaria
About ten years ago Ruja and her father owned a metal plant in Germany. The business collapsed due to fraud, and Ruja and her father were prosecuted.
A. The metal plant had to close down, and afterwards, Ruja and my father got prosecuted by law. And Ruja got in the end — excuse me — probation because of fraud.
Q. Did there come a time when your father and Ruja were both charged with criminal charges connected to that business?
A. Yes, in the end.
Q. Was the nature of those charges involving fraud?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you describe what happened after your father and your sister were charged with those crimes?
A. My sister went immediately to back to Bulgaria to live there, and left my parents alone in Germany, which led to a lot of death threats, a lot of violence against things that my parents have, like the apartment, or the car.
In the end, this led to a very hard heart attack of my father, and he became very sick.
Konstantin claims he had to drop out of university to care for his father.
OneCoin investor dissatisfaction lead to Konstantin being kidnapped at gunpoint
Ruja Ignatova’s 2017 disappearance saw existing dissatisfaction among OneCoin investors reach fever pitch.
In early 2018 Konstantin started receiving death threats on his phone.
In March Ignatov claims he was kidnapped at gunpoint.
in March 2018 when I wanted to go back to my car after working.
Somebody put a gun in my back and I was forced into a minivan.
Then I was taken out to the suburbs of Sofia where I got beaten up, a finger of mine was broken, and a gun was pointed out me.
And I was told if Ruja disappeared with the money, that these people would come back and kill me. And if I go to the police, that they will cut a body part out of me.
Later in 2018 Konstantin
got a call from a person who identified himself as a high-ranking member of the Hells Angels telling me I have to come to Zurich, Switzerland, to answer him and his business partners’ questions. And if I don’t come, he said that this will have a bad ending for me.
So I went there, where I ended up with them in a hotel room.
Again, a gun was pointed at me. This time, it was stuck into my mouth.
And I was told that I have to make sure that every promise that is made to them has to be fulfilled, and they told me that the money they invested into the company is far more worth than my life.
As part of his plea agreement with the US, Konstantin, his girlfriend and newborn will be entering witness protection.
After claiming the government stole his belongings, Konstantin threw his laptop in the trash
When Konstantin landed in the US in late February 2019, he was stopped by border patrol.
Border patrol confiscated Ignatov’s phone and laptop. The laptop was returned but they kept the phone.
Konstantin hung on the laptop till he got to Las Vegas.
A. When I was in Las Vegas, I put it into a paper trash bag with other trash items, and I took it to a trash bin on a busy place in the Las Vegas Strip, and I threw it into the trash bin there.
Q. Why did you do that?
A. Because I was afraid that somebody might find more evidence connecting me to OneCoin.
In Vegas Konstantin met with OneCoin investors.
Q. What did you do while you were in Las Vegas?
A. I had some meetings with people from the OneLife network. And then I attended two meetings that were intended to be about the future of e-commerce in the U.S.A., but in fact, in the end it was shown that these people that I met just wanted to implement a new Ponzi scheme in OneCoin.
Q. What was the nature of the new Ponzi scheme they wanted to implement?
A. It was called pump the volume. And it is promising the OneCoin members that already have packages in coins, that their money will increase thousand fold if they put some more money as an investment into the company.
At the time Konstantin claimed the three days he spent in Vegas were “very productive”.
He was arrested a few days later as he attempted to leave the country.
Konstantin snitched on Ruja and his mother
As of December 2019 Konstantin had met with the government “around 20 times”.
The meetings were a combination of preparing to testify at Mark Scott’s trial, as well as gathering of OneCoin related information.
Part of that gathering process saw Konstantin snitch on his sister Ruja, and mother Veska Ignatova.
Q. What type of information did you provide the government with?
A. About the crimes I committed, and every information I had about OneCoin, and the people related and the crimes that were committed in there.
Q. Did some of those crimes that other people committed relate to members of your own family?
A. Yes, to my sister and to my mother.
Veska Ignatova wrote a letter supporting Konstantin’s release from prison following his arrest. She was instrumental in the operation of OneCoin and remains at large.
Fernando Rys worked as Ruja Ignatova’s OneCoin money mule
It’s common knowledge that Ruja Ignatova was fond of spending OneCoin investor funds.
Q. What properties did Ruja buy during the time period between 2015 and 2017?
A. The London penthouse we were talking about yesterday. She bought another penthouse in Dubai. A mansion in Dubai.
A big mansion at the seaside of Bulgaria. Big mansion for her husband in Frankfurt, Germany, and various mansions in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Outside of her real estate empire, Ruja funded shopping sprees with the assistance of local money mules.
Fernando Rys was a OneCoin investor and manager of the company’s Hong Kong office.
He was also Ruja Ignatova’s personal money mule when she visited the country.
A. One time, it was in Hong Kong, I’ve seen Fernando Rys bringing her a backpack full of cash.
Q. Can you describe what happened when he brought that cash?
A. It was in the Ritz Carlton in Hong Kong. Ruja told me that Fernando will come because he owes her some money.
And then he came with his assistant and his bodyguards, and he left there a big backpack that was full of cash.
Q. Approximately how much money was inside of the backpack?
A. It was more than one million Hong Kong dollars.
Q. What did Ruja do with the money?
A. She went shopping in a luxury mall.
Q. Was it common or rare for Ruja to go shopping? A. It was very, very common for her.
Q. What types items did she buy?
A. Clothes only from the most expensive designers, a lot of jewelry, but she also bought a lot of cars, she had a lot of mansions and a yacht.
Q. You mentioned that Ruja would buy jewelry. Do you know how much any of the jewelry cost that she purchased?
A. I know that the most expensive items she owns are more than one million each.
Details on Rys are sketchy. His current status and whereabouts are unknown.
Update 14th March 2020 – I was initially unable to find anything on Rys because of a typo in the filed transcript.
The transcript misspells Rys’ surname as “Rhys”. Using the correct spelling reveals Rys’ OneCoin history.
Ruja named her daughter Davina
This tidbit came courtesy of exhibits of Ruja’s daughter’s christening party.
Q. Mr. Ignatov, do you recognize those?
A. Yes, this is a Christening party of Ruja’s daughter Davina in Ruja’s property in Sozopol at the seaside in Bulgaria.
Ruja was quite fond of the name, opting to name her Bulgarian yacht after her daughter.
As part of efforts to protect her daughter, Ignatova purchased an armored Lexus.
Q. What types of cars did Ruja buy?
A. She had a Rolls Royce, a Bentley, a Porsche, and an armored Lexus.
Q. The last one you mentioned was an armored Lexus. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any conversations with her about that car?
A. Ruja was always very afraid that somebody might kidnap her daughter.
Neither Ruja or Konstantin invested any of their money into OneCoin
Not that this should come as a surprise, but for all the talk of “future of money” etc., turns out neither Ruja or Konstantin invested a dollar into OneCoin.
Q. Approximately how much money did Ruja make from OneCoin before she disappeared?
A. Over 500 million.
Q. Where did that money come from?
A. From OneCoin investors.
Q. Did Ruja make any of that money by investing herself into OneCoins?
A. No.
Q. Did you make any money yourself by investing into OneCoins?
A. I never invested into OneCoin.
Q. Did she ever invest in OneCoins?
A. No.
One of OneCoin’s legal rubber stamps might have been tied to sex
One of the vehicles Ruja Ignatova used to launder OneCoin investor funds was RavenR.
RavenR had an office in London. Konstantin claims the company was staffed by
Duncan Arthur, Joanna Allinson, Gary Gilford, Max Bon Arin, Najib Kassis, and two Russian gentlemen, Anton and Anatoly.
Gary Gilford was RavenR’s office manager. Konstantin claims he was “supervising every project” and “getting legal opinions”.
One of those legal opinions was obtained through the law firm Hogan Lovells.
Did you have any discussions with your sister Ruja about Gary Gilford and that work with Hogan Lovells?
A. She mentioned he got either a legal opinion or a license, I can’t recall completely. With sleeping with an employee of Hogan Lovells.
The language is a bit odd, but Konstantin seems to be inferring Gilford was sleeping with one of Hogan Lovells’ employees.
BehindMLM reader Semjon commented last November that Hogan Lovells’
representatives went to the Sofia office, investigated it with “fine-tooth comb”, made some recommendations but ultimately gave their blessing to OneCoin.
Whether Gilford’s alleged relationship played any part in Hogan Lovells rubber-stamping OneCoin is unclear.
Konstantin also identified Martin Breidenbach (Breidenbach Rechtsanwalte) and Steven Schulenberg (Schulenberg & Schenk) as German lawyers “she worked with on OneCoin business”.
Both Breidenbach’s and Schulenberg’s firms published legal opinions rubber-stamping OneCoin.
Viktor Rashev, a Bulgarian lawyer, is also cited as being “in charge of Ruja’s properties”.
Sebastian Greenwood made off with over a hundred million after Ruja disappeared
According to Konstantin, Ruja Ignatova stashed “hundreds of millions” in apartments in Dubai, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Q. Approximately how much cash was stored in those apartments?
A. Hundreds of millions.
After Ruja Ignatova disappeared, Konstantin claims Greenwood emptied out Ignatova’s South Korean and Hong Kong apartments.
We’re aware of $7.1 million of Greenwood’s stash being seized in China.
Beyond that we haven’t heard anything since his late 2018 Thailand arrest and reported extradition to the US.
Mark Scott had armed security during his visits to Bulgaria
In 2016 Mark Scott (right) made a trip to Bulgaria.
Phone messages between Scott and his wife Lidia Kolesnikova reveal he was chauffeured around by armed security.
The first message is from Scott, Mark Scott to Lidia Kolesnikova. It says: Just showered. Off to see R.
The response from Lidia Kolesnikova is: Is G there?
Mark Scott writes in response: In the morning. Nothing yet. And G tomorrow.
There’s a question from Lidia Kolesnikova: How is Sofia?
Mark Scott writes: Busy driving to Hilton soon and then dinner at 8 p.m.
Getting used to driver and security. I like it. And then there appear to be some emojis below that.
Then in the final message from Mark Scott he writes: Funny how people look at you that way.
They can’t carry guns on belt so they all have a sleek type of Man purse hanging around their necks with weapons. Everyone know. Even police is polite. LOL.
And X6. Cheyenne Turbo S Class. And always two guys. Ruja more. And they stay outside of hotel.
As per Konstantin’s alleged assaults, apparently when he took over he wasn’t offered the same protection.
When things went wrong, Ruja Ignatova screamed at people on the phone
Prior to Ruja Ignatova’s disappearance OneCoin had many set backs, most of which we’ve documented here after they happened.
In real time, Ruja Ignatova doesn’t appear to have taken failure well.
In one particular example remembered by Konstantin;
I heard her screaming on the phone. I think it was to Maya Antonova.
And she called, excuse me, my language now, Mark Scott an idiot, that he fucked totally up and that he’s useless.
This was a few months after Scott’s 2016 visit to Sofia, for a meeting held so that ‘Scott understood everything that has to be or he has to do‘.
Irina Dilsinka sat in on the meeting. She later told Konstantin it went on for “a long time”.
Outside of OneCoin’s Sofia office, Ruja held “important” business meetings at The Residence.
Q. What is the Residence?
A. The Residence is something like a club for the rich people in Sofia where Ruja always liked to have her business meetings that are important.
On its website, The Residence pitches itself as a ‘one of a kind elite private club in Bulgaria‘.
The Residence is an exclusive private club based on the careful selection of its members and the concept of spiritual and social communication in a cozy and peaceful environment.
Another instance saw either Irina Dilkinska or Maya Anatova (from Onecoin accounting),
getting screamed at from Ruja because money got frozen. I think it was in Germany.
Mark Scott wasn’t worried about getting caught
In January 2017 Ruja Ignatova began to worry about the ill-gotten wealth she’d accumulated.
On another visit to Sofia, Scott picked up on this.
Text messages between him and his wife however suggest, at least as far as his own involvement in OneCoin went, he didn’t share Ruja’s concerns.
On January 11, 2017 Mark Scott writes: By the way, please look around a bit for investment property. I need to diversify into real estate. Maybe a couple of places for 750 to 1.0 mio each.
The following day he writes: In Sofia now, with what appears to be a fire emoji. And another text message on the same date.
Mark Scott writes: We had stuff to discuss. I think she is nervous a little and wants to split up her money. Does not matter to me baby. As long as I make mine.
OneCoin was “dead” after Ruja’s October 2017 disappearance
As recounted by Konstantin;
after Ruja disappeared the company was more or less dead. There was no money left.
And we were searching for sources where other companies that has some funds.
And Irina said that, for example, there are still funds with Mark Scott and Amer Abdulaziz.
This is significant because after Ruja disappeared, OneCoin’s top net-winners began to leave the company.
Those that started up or joined other scams often trotted out cock and bull stories.
In reality why they left OneCoin was much simpler; after Ruja disappeared there was no money in it.
The DOJ gave the leaked presentation to something called “Operation Satellite”
Frank Schneider, head of OneCoin’s money laundering operations, also had connections in law enforcement.
It was Schneider who tipped Ruja off that she was under investigation.
This was learned via details of a DOJ presentation to an up till now undisclosed party, being leaked to Schneider.
Up until now we’ve had no specific details on who the DOJ gave the presentation to.
As per an email exchange between Schneider and Konstantin (who used the screen name “ieatflowers”), the name of the group the DOJ presented to is “Operation Satellite”.
The e-mail reads: Sorry, I answered a little too quick. There is a potential problem with Mark that you need to know.
When we saw the presentations that the US authorities gave to an international working group called Operation Satellite in January 2017, they identified targets and target entities.
The US new about Fenero, the transfers to Ireland and presumably also the transfers to Dubai.
The presentations mentioned GA, SG, R, various structures and companies, Singapore accounts, etc. But there was no mention of MS, none.
The context of the email was what US authorities knew about OneCoin, and suspicion that Mark Scott might be a rat.
I’ve had a search on Operation Satellite and haven’t turned up anything.
The name has been used in a few unrelated investigations, but nothing OneCoin specific.
If I had to guess “working group” refers to an international joint-task of law enforcement who, at the time, were working together on investigating OneCoin.
Konstantin refers to Frank Schneider as a “very well connected person (with) informants everywhere.”
As at the time of publication Schneider remains at large.
Sebastian Greenwood slept with Ruja Ignatova’s PA
Sometime between late 2016 and early 2017, Sebastian Greenwood had an affair with Ruja Ignatova’s PA at the time, Denitza Godeva.
Upon learning of the affair, Ruja Ignatova fired Godeva.
I don’t recall Greenwood being married, so I believe it was Godeva who was cheating.
After firing Godeva, Ignatova approached her brother Konstantin about taking the role.
Ruja told Konstantin “she couldn’t trust other people”.
After thinking about it for a bit, Konstantin left his forklift driver position at Porsche to work for his sister.
Ruja bought Konstantin
clothes from more expensive brands because she said she doesn’t want to be embarrassed anymore when (he was) around her friends and business partners.
Ruja Ignatova and Sebastian Greenwood had a “strange” relationship
It’s no secret Sebastian Greenwood and Ruja Ignatova were close.
The pair founded OneCoin and, during the company’s heyday, were seemingly inseparable.
We know Greenwood was banging Ruja’s PA, but was he banging Ruja herself?
Konstantin doesn’t confirm as much, but does state their relationship was “strange”.
Q. So Sebastian Greenwood and Ruja Ignatova you believe had a romantic relationship at some point?
A. I don’t know. Nobody ever told me.
Q. Well didn’t you tell the prosecutors or the agents that you believed they had a romantic relationship?
A. They had something strange going on. They called themselves once brother and sister. Then you see them hugging. Then you see them holding hands. Then you see them — each other.
Nobody ever told me. It’s just a strange relationship they had.
Will the mystery of Ruja Ignatova and Sebastian Greenwood’s relationship ever be solved?
Frank Ricketts advised Ruja Ignatova on how to evade law enforcement
In exchange for a top position within OneCoin, Frank Ricketts sold his pyramid scheme SiteTalk to Ruja Ignatova.
Ricketts also owned International Marketing Services (IMS), which was used to launder OneCoin investor funds through.
According to Konstantin, Ricketts helped Ignatova launder money with the help of ‘his business partner Kenny Nordland, also his wife‘.
As part of the SiteTalk deal, Nordlund also got a cushy position within OneCoin.
In addition to assisting with financial fraud, Ricketts also consulted Ignatova on
how she can avoid law enforcement, and how she can avoid prosecution.
Because Frank Ricketts himself had a lot of problems with prosecutions, but never really got in jail for it, and always got away with it.
Konstantin claims Ricketts was “very proud” to be advising Ignatova on how to evade authorities.
Ricketts is believed to currently be hiding out in Thailand. His latest gig is the Cloud Horizon Ponzi scheme.
Irina Dilkinska’s post-arrest meltdown
Irina Dilkinska worked closely with Mark Scott to set up shell companies to launder OneCoin investor fund through.
After news of Mark Scott’s arrest reached Sofia, Dilkinska (right) had a meltdown.
A. Maybe again two days later Irina came to the office, in Sofia, and she was panicking a lot and she told me that — sorry my language — she’s fucked now.
Because she’s in all papers with Mark Scott, and when they got him they will also get her.
Q. Where did that conversation with Irina Dilkinska take place?
A. In the Sofia head office of OneCoin.
Q. What was Irina Dilkinska’s demeanor during that conversation?
A. She was panicking, she was really going crazy.
Q. What did she say to you?
A. She said that she’s fucked. And that she’s in all of the documents with Mark Scott, and that when they got him, they will also get her. So that she’s got a lot of problems now.
Q. After this conversation in the OneCoin office, did you have any additional discussions with Irina about Mark Scott’s arrest?
A. A few days later, at the office of the law firm that is providing services to OneCoin, Irina came in and she was again very panicking, but this time she was very demanding.
And she demanded the lawyers to hand her out all of the documents of OneCoin so she can find every document that she’s in with Mark Scott, so that she can destroy them like she destroyed the documents she had at home.
Q. You referenced that she had destroyed documents at her home. What, if anything, did she say to you about that?
A. She said that she burned them all.
Q. What was your understanding of what documents those were?
A. These were documents where Irina was also mentioned to be in some companies with Mark Scott.
Q. What was your understanding of what Irina wanted to do with the documents that were at the law firm?
A. She wanted to go through all the documents to find the ones that she is in with Mark Scott, and I think she wanted to burn them too, like the ones she did that she had at home.
Q. Did that in fact happen?
A. No. The lawyers told her that they moved the documents to somewhere where they have a safe.
Irina Dilkinska remains at large. Her current status and whereabouts are unknown.
Konstantin’s Power of Attorney over Ruja Ignatova is likely fake
Part of the evidence cache collected during Konstantin’s arrest, was a power of attorney document pertaining to his sister, Ruja.
To date I don’t think anyone has challenged the document, but how Konstantin received it lends itself to being fraudulent.
Q. When you were arrested the government discovered you had a power of attorney from Ruja Ignatova, right?
A. Yes.
Q. And a power of attorney is something that gives you rights to do things that Ruja Ignatova previously had rights to do or in addition to what rights she has, right?
A. Well this power of attorney was given to me by Irina Dilkinska and I’m not sure if this is real.
She told me that she got it via chain of people, that Ruja gave it to her.
But later on I learned that Irina Dilkinska is trying to get our fake power of attorney to Ruja’s money.
So I don’t know if this is a real power of attorney and I never used it.
Q. So you believe Irina made a fake power of attorney?
A. She did it before.
Q. When did she do it before?
A. She did it, I don’t know exactly the month, but I was told that she did it to get the money from Amer Abdulaziz.
It should be noted that Dilkinska likely also has fake passports in her possession. A fake Power of Attorney notice isn’t much of a stretch.
OneCoin’s cringey “haterz” defense came from the top
BehindMLM first sounded the OneCoin alarm in our 2014 published review.
Since then we’ve faithfully covered and continue to cover OneCoin developments.
When confronted with our research, or in fact anything suggesting OneCoin is a scam, proponents of the Ponzi scheme dismissed it because it came from “haterz”.
This has become a bit of a cliche, used ironically to preemptively describe how what’s left of OneCoin will dismiss new developments (such as this article).
As Konstantin himself learned, OneCoin’s cringey “they’re just haterz” culture spread top down.
Q. At times when you were working there I believe you saw rumors on websites suggesting there were problems with OneCoin; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And you told Ruja that in some cases that you had seen these things?
A. Yes.
Q. And she told you it’s haters and it’s not real and what we’re doing is real, right?
A. Yes. This is the main answer I always got.
Unfortunately after it collapsed, OneCoin scammers spread far and wide.
“Haterz” has become the default response when information that is detrimental to the promotion of scams can’t be explained away.
Despite being MIA for two and a half years, in some ways Ruja’s legacy lives on.
Konstantin’s plea agreement might spare him additional prison time
Having plead guilty, Konstantin is yet to be sentenced.
As revealed in cross-examination, part of Konstantin’s plea deal is the possibility the DOJ will submit a “5K Letter”.
Q. And the big advantage of a cooperation agreement is there’s a possibility of the government writing what’s called a 5K letter to the judge before sentencing, right?
A. If I testify truthfully, yes.
Q. And the 5K letter gives you a potential, right, for a much lower sentence?
A. Yes.
Q. You could be sentenced to as little as time served, right?
A. Yes.
Q. No guarantees, of course?
A. No.
Q. It’s up to the judge?
A. Yes.
As at the time of publication, Konstantin’s sentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled.
Update 25th September 2021 – Mark Scott’s retrial letter motion has revealed that Konstantin didn’t throw away his laptop, as alleged above in his witness testimony.
Rather he gave the laptop to Duncan Arthur, who traveled with it out of the US.
Upon travelling to OneCoin’s head office in Bulgaria, Arthur handed the laptop over to Konstantin’s mother, Veska.
But that girlfriend is Kristina Gouneva, who is claimed by Cordel James to be one of the four people left in Sofia who now constitute “the company”.
I don’t see how that tallies with being lined up for a US witness protection program. I wonder if she actually signed up to this agreement.
The same thing is often stated about Bernie Madoff, and lots of other scammers, but it’s really a non-statement, or a tautology. “Investing” in such scams merely consists of handing over money to Ruja, or Madoff, or whoever, to do with as they please.
Everything “invested” just becomes part of their money, you can’t give your own money to yourself again.
The word “haters”, BTW, is not at all peculiar to OC, it’s widely used throughout the world of scams, not just MLM ones, to dismiss unbelievers who dare to express their unbelief. But I first encountered it a long time ago, not among scammers but among rabid, mostly teenage and female, fans of certain pop stars.
There was a time when anyone who, let’s say, dared to express any doubt about Justin Bieber being the greatest musical talent since Mozart, and the most sexually attractive person on the planet as well, could count on immediately being decried as a “hater” in certain online circles.
That’s why it made me laugh when I first saw it used among scammers, it just sounded so incredibly puerile to me.
@Oz
Fernando’s last name is actually Rys, not Rhys. That’s a name typo in the transcripts. You get much more Google hits with the correct name. 😉
i.imgur.com/TyZ8Riv.png
Lets put here also the official Court transcripts mirrored in Courtlistener.
Konstantin was testifying on 6th and 7th November.
November 18th will be hopefully available soon (still restricted in PACER).
Nov 5: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/187/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 6: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/189/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 7: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/191/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 8: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/193/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 12: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/195/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 13: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/197/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 14: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/199/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 15: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/201/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 18: N/A
Nov 19: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/205/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 20: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/207/united-states-v-scott/
Nov 21: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/209/united-states-v-scott/
Sorry for the long post, but this is something I’ve wanted to comment on for quite a while now:
That is no doubt what Schneider wants people to believe, and how he tries to sell his company’s services, but I think we should really keep the importance of Frank Schneider in perspective.
According to reporting from Luxembourg unrelated to, and predating, OC, the company he set up after leaving government employment, Sandstone, wasn’t very successful, and was reported to be close to collapse at around the time Ruja must have appeared on the scene.
Clearly, the services he could offer didn’t attract that many buyers. She may well have been the one big client who saved his business.
Based on what he did before he set up his company, it’s also very hard to see just where he would get a significant worldwide network of informants from, generating the kind of information clients would be willing to pay for.
Especially not informants within law enforcement, a field he has never had any discernible professional connections too, and the only one relevant to OC.
He worked for the intelligence agency of Luxembourg, the SERL. I only remember hearing about the scandal about the illegal activtities of the SERL, because I found it so amusing that a country with only just 600,000 inhabitants even had what was grandly described as a “spy agency”.
The total staff of the SERL is only 56. Take away purely secretarial and technical staff, and that doesn’t leave many “spies”.
Among that tiny number, Schneider only got to the number 3 position, “director of operations”. He wasn’t qualified for the number 2 job, because that normally requires a law degree, and the number 1 job normally goes to the former holder of the number 2 job.
The lack of qualifications might have been waived, but he also lacked any support or popularity both within the civil service, and in political circles, to get promoted any further (these positions are important enough, within the tiny little world of Luxembourg’s government, to require direct involvement of the Prime Minister).
His personality and approach didn’t fit with the very staid, cautious, conservative culture that rules there. The general impression one gets is that nobody ever really trusted him, or liked him.
The scandal about the SERL’s activities did bring down the government of Luxembourg, but it was also incredibly small-scale, and entirely parochial.
One of the major points of the scandal was that the SERL had surreptiously recorded a conversation between the Prime Minister and the Grand Duke. Yes, that was grossly illegal, but it’s hardly the stuff of major intrigue.
If a conversation between the mayor and deputy mayor of a city with 600,000 inhabitants had been illegally taped by someone working for the city, nobody would think the person responsible had to be at the center of of a worldwide private intelligence network, would they?
Yet that’s the level of things the SERL kept itself busy with during Schneider’s time. That drilling through the floor of Gilbert Armenta’s apartment to put in a microphone sounds exactly like Schneider’s kind of thing. Not operating a worldwide private intelligence agency.
Even when he was still in his SERL job it’s also unlikely he had any privileged access to anyone from outside Luxembourg.
Intelligence services don’t share information freely, even among supposed allies everything works on a need-to-know basis, or a quid-pro-quo basis: I’ll tell you something you might be interested in if you tell me something I might be interested in.
It’s highly unlikely Luxembourg’s minuscule intelligence service ever had much to offer anyone else wanted to know.
As to law enforcement, it’s even harder to see how he could have built up any network of informants. Or why anyone he had met while he worked for the SERL would continue to feed him information after he left it.
All these people would be breaking the law, not only risking their job but serious jail sentences, by telling him anything confidential: why would they do this?
In the particular case of OC, how would any such informants even know that he would have any interest, if something about OC happened to pass across their desk?
It’s hardly likely that he sent out regular updates on who had hired his company’s services to all his contacts, just in case one of them came across some mention of any of his clients in the course of their work.
I still think the leak about the US investigation into OC came from the obvious place, where I suspected it came from the first time it was reported on, long before anyone the name of Schneider popped up: from within Bulgarian law enforcement.
Any international briefing about the investigation by the US must have included Bulgaria, and that country is notoriously corrupt and infested with organised crime, right up to the highest circles of government.
As one Bulgarian police official once put it: every country has its maffia, but in Bulgaria, the maffia has its country.
Bulgaria was also the only place in the world where OC was widely known about. Leaking information about this briefing to OC would be a pretty obvious thing to do, and it would be obvious for Ruja to ask Schneider to then assess it, as the closest thing to an expert they had around.
To summarize: I don’t think Schneider is nearly as well-connected and well-informed as he likes to pretend he is, and as Konstantin and others believe he is.
Former intelligence officers who try to make money by spinning fancy tales about how important they once were, and how well-connected they still are, are a dime a dozen.
Thanks WhistleBlowerFin!
The Closing statement by Mr Foly is great, a must read.
Nov 20: courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/207/united-states-v-scott/
For instance, page 41:
@PassingBy
I agree that OneCoin didn’t start it and I too associate “haterz” with pre-teen pop music fans.
Now it’s everywhere but I believe OneCoin was the first MLM company we saw it evolve as the default “I don’t want to address the facts” response.
Seeing grown adults throw the term around is highly amusing.
@WhistleBlowerFin
Ah, thanks for that. Explains why nothing came up.
So Onelife is to be avoided?
Since I’m being promoted to enter, I ask if it’s reliable, the person tells me that they have invested and won since 2015.
And they are lying. Don’t fall for it. If OneCoin was a real crypto-currency it would be trading on the open market.
Hard to trade on an open market when they don’t have a working blockchain to mine the coins and they don’t exist don’t out think?
@David Lasserre
invested and won=stealing other peoples monies for nothing since 2015.
@David Lasserre:
Simply ask them to show you the evidence: bank or credit card statements, showing all payments they made to OneCoin/OneLife between 2015 and now; and all payments of return on investment going in the opposite direction.
Real documents showing real amounts in real money, not some numbers on a screen showing some OC/OL “back office”. That should be easy enough, no?
OK, the fact that the last bank account OC/OL had in their own name was shut down in January 2017 might pose a bit of problem, but still.
Some of these names are adding up.
Some of the cross-references are undeniable.
Some of the money launderers are hiding in plain site.
Most of them we’ve confronted.
The day may have passed.
#MoonLearning
You listen to the wrong people David. Or maybe it’s you talking….
How’s your Gemcoins doing?
behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/usfia-review-gemcoin-ponzi-points-investment/ (various comments e.g. #45)
Very good summary. There is probably more coverage to come, but I’d like to raise some points:
Here is a picture of what I think is the original OneCoin Bulgarian IT-team:
flickr.com/photos/129974933@N08/16091730158/in/photostream/
Ivan is Ivan Slavkov, head of IT of OneCoin. He is the guy with blue shirt standing next to Ruja. See my comment from last September about on his background:
https://behindmlm.com/companies/onecoin/konstantin-ignatov-denied-release-will-stay-locked-up-till-onecoin-trial/#comment-414357
“Momchil” is presumably someone called Momchil Angelov. I don’t know if he is in the picture, but if is, he is the guy bewteen the fatty and Ruja.
I do know that “Momchil” is not the fat guy, because I have managed to figure out (with image search engines) that his name is Dobrin Nachev.
He has is connected to Ivan Slavkov’s IT firms. (See: bg.linkedin.com/in/dobrin-nachev-aa370778).
Momchi is also not one of two guy next on Ivan, because they to are Bozhidar Hristov(linkedin.com/in/bozhidar-hristov-52b684a3) and Borislav Lesichkov (bg.linkedin.com/in/borislav-lesichkov-4806bba2), also connected to Ivan’s IT-firms VM5 Ltd/Object.bg Ltd.
I hope they will soon face justice for enabling OneCoin fraud.
– Ruja got her fake passport from Kyrgyzstan, by recommendation of Frank Schneider:
– There is refrence to an email by Sebastian Greenwood, which indicates that the OneCoin Ponzi system (meaning OneExchange/Xcoinx?) was rigged to favour the top leaders:
– Konstantin elaborates on the fake audit report in trascript of the day before (courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.482287/gov.uscourts.nysd.482287.187.0.pdf).
It appears that the audit was not only fake, but the original auditor (presumambly Dian Dimitrov, managing partner of Semperis Fortis; youtube.com/watch?v=WAIKyBF4GuE) “took the money and ran”, which forced them fabricate the report “in-house”:
Shiit, Konstantin Ignatov has been released yesterday.
Check bop.gov/inmateloc/
Things getting interesting. He will probably enter witness protection, even though Onecoiners of course believe he will continue in OneCoin.
Interesting indeed.
Curious if he starts updating his Facebook account: facebook.com/konsti.keks
I was wondering why would Konstantin travel to the United States when he should have at least suspected that he might be arrested.
Now I get a feeling that Konstantin intentionally traveled to the USA because he knew he had a chance of getting into witness protection programe so he can escape the scammed people who might come after him.
Seems like he doesn’t care about neither his sister Ruja nor his mother, most likely because he figured out that his sister Ruja basically groomed him to become the fall guy when she vanishes.
He takes the heat from the law and the dangerous people who will chase him in the absence of Ruja.
Truly the greatest ponzi drama of the decade.
If Konstantin would be a man, he would tell in social media the same he told in court. Enough people have been scammed already.
There are still so many members who have no idea what Konstantin has admitted in court, or don’t believe it. Some of the craziest members even claim he wasn’t arrested at all.
Lets see if he continues being a fking a-hole human scum, or will he do the right thing now that he has anyway confessed everything.
Do something good for the sake of those poor people OneCoin/OneLife has scammed, and help stop this OneCoin shit, Konstantin.
According to his testimony, Frank Schneider had told him he’d been taken off the FBI arrest list, because he was considered too unimportant. Because Konstantin thinks Schneider has access to lots and lots of privileged information from a huge network of informants within law enforcement, he believed him.
Of course, facts have conclusively proven Schneider was talking bollocks. But how could anyone with any sense have believed such a thing to be true in the first place?
Even if Ruja hadn’t done a runner, Konstantin was still her PA and scheduled lots of her meetings, so he’d be a potentially valuable source of information about her contacts and activities.
After she disappeared, Konstantin didn’t just become a public figurehead, he was playing a significant role in trying to keep the scam going without her.
Also, he pretended to the outside world to still be in contact with Ruja, and the investigators at the time would have had no way of telling whether that was true or not. So they had to operate taking into account the possibility he was telling the truth on that point, and that he might lead them to her.
There is simply no way Konstantin would ever have been dismissed as not important enough to be arrested by the FBI, if he gave them the chance by setting foot on US soil.
It’s a good example of why I think Schneider is a total windbag.
If Konstantin is out, Mark S Scott is in:
Personally I think Konstantin not talking publicly on social media or otherwise would be part of his plea deal. Especially if he’s going into witness protection.
I’ve also been informed that the Hells Angels referenced in Konstantin’s testimony were refunded shortly after the incident.
So just for the record, the part referring to me, Gary Gilford, offering sex in return for favourable legal advice is utter nonsense.
I have never slept or had sex with anybody from Hogan Lovells, or any other law firm for that matter in order to get a favourable piece of legal advice.
I am sure it will be easy enough for me to prove because I can’t think of anyone at Hogan Lovells that I have even kissed under the mistletoe at Christmas time.
I have no idea whether Ruja really did tell Konstantin this juicy bit of gossip, or whether K was lying under oath, but this is the first time I have even heard of this rubbish so I will certainly seeking to rectify this statement.
Furthermore I cannot imagine that any decent law firm would swing its legal advice in this manner. Law firms quite rightly have strict systems and controls over any legal advice they give, and Hogan Lovells is one of the best and most professional firms that I have ever worked with.
I cannot comment on any legal advice they gave but confirm that they certainly did not rubber stamp the whole business.
The business had many many legal issues but we all hoped that they could be resolved. There were a number of high quality firms that we used and Queen’s Council were also brought in to advise time to time.
In addition, Konstantin’s statement that I oversaw every project is completely misguided.
I had no oversight at all over any of Irina Dilkinska’s work, and even the guys in the London office were not giving me the full picture it transpires (under Ruja’s instructions).
Getting any sensible answer to a simple question from Irina Dilkinska was like pulling teeth at the best of times.
In October 2018, K wanted me to work much more closely with Irina to keep an eye on what she was doing ands then take over. I flew over twice to go and see her to get an update on her emails and asked her to make sure that she copied me in.
When I arrived she was never available and in meetings, used to switch to speaking Bulgarian when I entered the room, and said she was sorry but she was too busy.
I have many witnesses to some scathing emails I sent to Irina whenever I did get wind of something that was being handled terribly badly, and there was a time when she wouldn’t speak to me for about 8 months.
Again I have no idea what Konstantin was thinking – it is possible that he was lying under oath but more likely the he just hadn’t realised that I was not working with Irina. We are both lawyers after all so it is an easy mistake to make (I guess).
There are other parts of his statement which I do not think are correct and I shall be contacting the relevant authorities in this regard.
There are liars, damned liars and pathological liars. It’s hard to keep them all straight isn’t it.
In the meantime Sebastian Greenwood is still being kept in hiding. Makes you wonder when the Feds are going to turn him loose in court doesn’t it.
@ Lynndel ~ Luckily I only met Sebastien two or three times so hopefully my name will be kept out of his statement. It will probably be equally as scandalous…
I would be quite tempted to sue K for libel but first of all he has probably quite rightly given all of his money back to the people who need it most, and secondly I can imagine there would be some difficult legal challenges in suing somebody who is on a witness protection scheme !!
Though I guess it’s possible, I find it hard to believe that Konstantin really got the “time served” sentence or that he is a free man. I think it’s more likely that he was just moved to some other facility.
BOP info page indicates that despite “released”-status, this is possible:
(bop.gov/inmateloc/about_records.jsp)
Until we have solid confirmation about his sentencing, I’d say the most likely explanation is that Konstantin was moved to WITSEC facility.
It seems too merciful that the 90 years he was facing, would turn into a sentence of just one year, given the large amounts of money and victims in his crimes.
He wasn’t the most informed person in the criminal enterpise, so I doubt his snitching was so valuable that it would justify such a massive sentence reduction.
Most of all, it would be odd that the judge set him free, because the case is still unfolding, and many of his known and unknown co-conspirators are at large.
And the criminal organization he was part of (OneCoin), though in dying throes, is still there, up and running.
@Gary I can’t contest he says/he says but IMO any law firm that put out a public legal opinion not calling OneCoin a Ponzi scheme rubber-stamped the business.
Absolutely no excuses.
@Oz – I do not agree with you on this point I’m sorry. In my opinion the document that they produced identified many legal issues which could’ve been resolved by a competent business. The document did not sign off the MLM side of the business as perfect, no legal issues.
We also developed further stages of work to consider other parts of the business such as the coin and the blockchain and these were not signed off.
So I would say that we did have legal advice on the MLM aspects of the business for the folks in Sofia to take action
What legal issues? OneCoin was a Ponzi pyramid from day one. You can’t legitimize that. You can’t resolve that.
Any legal opinion that wasn’t a one paragraph “Your are running a Ponzi scheme. Stop now.”, was a rubber-stamp.
I went over OneCoin’s comp plan in 2014 and identified it as a Ponzi scheme. Lawyers getting paid stupid money with access should have concluded the same. No excuses.
i Agree whit OZ,
Protecting the interest of your clients should be for the courtroom.
Not while there scamming the socks of poor our naive people globally.
In my book that makes you an accessory.
@Oz -Thw second page of the advice states” it is our view that the activities carried on by OneLife under that agreement will not constitute a pyramid promotional scheme within the meaning of paragraph 14 of the Schedule 1 to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008”.
It then goes on to give a thorough and detailed analysis to support this argument. This was their view – certainly at the time (November 2016).
Whoever wrote that is an incompetent moron. Period.
There is absolutely no way to look at OneCoin’s MLM business model, which literally has no retail, and conclude it’s anything but a pyramid scheme.
None of the lawyers/appraisers were interested in the fact that the “Grand Dame” Ruja Ignatova and her fraudulent family had already been convicted of fraud before any windy legal opinions were prepared!
And this in a civilized country like Germany, which is very willing to provide information.
@Lord – I am talking about my view and the view of our advisors at the time – ie November 2016.
This is not my current position on this matter – if you didn’t’t already know I am absolutely sure it is a scam through and through now. Matters have moved on …
@Gary Gilford:
What wonderful logic. Whether or not something is criminal or not is determined by whether or not some small part of their criminal activity could superficially be seen to be in compliance with paragraph 14 of Schedule 1 to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
This is a bit like saying that a drug dealer’s operations are legal, because the little plastic bags he sells his product in comply with all product safety regulations, while blithely ignoring the white powder inside those bags.
I don’t even know from which country those regulations are, but I do know that OneCoin was a criminal enterprise, intentionally, inherently, totally, in all the countries it operated in.
That fact could be easily ascertained right from the start by anyone simply looking at OC’s own publicity material.
That they were a pure Ponzi scheme, using an add-on pyramid scheme to bring in more money, was always blatantly obvious.
But then, for a lawyer, you do have some very strange ideas about legality. A few comments earlier, you said:
I’d love to see you post a list of which jurisdictions in the world you think allow someone to sue a witness for libel for something they said in court.
The USA definitely isn’t one of them, nor is the UK. Nor is any other country I’ve ever heard of, for pretty obvious reasons.
In the anglosaxon world, such testimony is said to enjoy “absolute privilege” from defamation proceedings. You’d think a lawyer would know such a simple, obvious legal fact.
@Passerby – as you know I was not engaged by Ruja to support the OneCoin and OneLife businesses.
It may indeed have been obvious to some of you that it was a pyramid scheme but I had never even heard of MLM when I joined Ruja’s family office in 2016.
Ruja exceptionally got me involved to get a UK legal opinion ion the pyramid structure. I have never claimed to be an expert in MLM/Network Marketing.
What you quote as blatantly obvious above may well be to you since you have probably got lots of experience in MLM matters. It was not blatantly obvious to me, not was it blatantly obvious to a string of quality law firms an even a Queens Council.
If it is blatantly obvious as you suggest, then why were frozen bank accounts unfrozen, and regulatory and police actions dropped?
In relation to my comments on libel, well done to you for your research.. How on Earth you could think I was being serious about suing somebody who is most likely on a witness protection scheme, and who I hope is well on the way to returning monies to the OneLife victims who were effected by the scam is anyone’s guess.
That is like working for Pablo Escobar’s family office and saying you’ve never heard of cocaine. Don’t be silly. Of course you knew where Ruja’s money came from, that was your job.
If you didn’t know what a pyramid scheme was before you interviewed for a job in one, you certainly did afterwards. Or reasonably should have known which is the same thing.
This isn’t onecoin-derpbate.eu, you can skip the “The German authorities have closed the case” nonsense.
OneCoin has been prosecuted in the US and has had bank accounts frozen permanently all over the world, which is why they keep having to come up with new shell companies and launder money via people claiming to have never heard of OneCoin.
Lawyers will say anything if you pay enough money. QCs get the big bucks because they are better at coming up with legalistic justifications, including for the legally indefensible, than your bog standard conveyancer.
Every QC will have their opinions proven wrong in court hundreds of times in their career, usually by other QCs.
… who I hope is well on the way to returning monies to the OneLife victims who were effected by the scam is anyone’s guess …
What money does the swindler Konstantin Ignatov want to give back to the deceived?
Did I miss something in there at some point? Where is this money supposed to be?
If he had stashed it somewhere under his name, it would have been taken from him long ago.
If he has stashed it under a different name/company, he will logically never give it back!
If he has passed everything on to his deceitful family, especially to his sister Ruja, who has gone into hide/maybe dead, he won’t get anything from them, he has betrayed them all!
@ Malthusian
to clarify:-
1. I did not apply for a job in a pyramid. I applied for a job in Ruja’s family office. I would hate to do network marketing.
2. Yes now that the US docs are out it is bindingly obvious for all to see that it was a scam. However before these documents came out, and regulators were actually closing investigations and unfreezing OneLife monies held in amounts, that it is feasible that one could take the view that the issues on the regulatory landscape were beginning to take a turn for the better.
Bye to Malthusian and Passerby – we must do this again sometime.
I.e. to invest the proceeds of a pyramid scheme. Everyone who works in finance has a statutory duty to know where the money they handle has come from. Especially if they are working in the EU under its very clear money laundering directives.
No, it was blindingly obvious from the very first moment Ruja started running a scam where she took people’s money on the promise of ridiculous investment returns and paid off existing investors and introducers with money from new ones, which was around 2014.
Again, this isn’t the place for your alternate reality. You may find onecoin-derpbate.eu or Facebook a more receptive audience.
OneCoin has been prosecuted in the US. Other regulators closed their files due to a combination of a) leaving it to the US to handle and b) OneCoin not being a big enough deal in their home country.
OneCoin’s bank accounts have been constantly shut down, requiring it to constantly open new ones and employ a network of money launderers.
Bye, Flouncy McFlounceface. If only that approach worked on the FBI, Konstantin could be back in his gym by now.
That there wasn’t anything “definitive” on OneCoin being a Ponzi-pyramid scheme at that time, didn’t prevent folks at Apex fund using common sense in their due diligence work:
(p. 656, courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.482287/gov.uscourts.nysd.482287.193.0.pdf)
@ Gary Gilford
Question: During your due diligence on OneCoin prior to working with them, did you do a simply Google search?
For example, if you would have searched for “onecoin scam” or “onecoin complaints” you would have found dozens of message boards like this one with enough information for any reasonable person to just Run (Not Walk) Away.
So, did you do such a search prior to working with OneCoin?
Gary, the incompetence of European regulators does not change the fact OneCoin was a scam from the get go.
Neither does your ignorance, feigned or otherwise.
As far as Apex fund goes, by July 2016 we’d already published seventy-two articles documenting OneCoin’s Ponzi journey.
@PassingBy
Via email:
I take the following from the court transcript (file: gov.uscourts.nysd.482287.189.0.pdf), p. 263 l. 25ff:
One thing is obvious. When it came to the legality of OneCoin’s MLM program, these law firms were totally incompetent in their investigations and conclusions.
One has to assume they bought the lie that it was only us “haters” and the other crypto-currencies and banks were afraid of the competition BS that OneCoin spewed. Real due diligence there law firms, real due diligence.
I bet if the check hadn’t cleared it would have been a different story.
While I haven’t seen enough of the law firm opinions in this case, I am getting the impression some commenters on here have a somewhat naive picture of law firms or lawyers.
Legal opinions are not court rulings. Law firms are not the police or courts. They are not the authorities and they have no authority to investigate clients.
They are paid, private service providers. Their client provides them with information and the firms draft a legal opinion based on the information they are given.
Truth-finding or criminal investigations are not part of it. Naturally, what law firms do is argue in favour of their clients.
Whether there’s any substance to a legal opinion will hopefully be established in a court.
Nobody said legal opinions are court rulings.
The problem is OneCoin paid law firms to rubber stamp the business model. Anyone who looked at OneCoin’s business model, with or without access (which lawyers had), should have identified it as a Ponzi scheme.
OneCoin then paraded these legal opinions, which didn’t call the scheme out for what it was, as justification for fraud.
If you want to call them service providers that’s fine. Service providers are subject to clawback and I have no problem with that.
Addendum to my own message #44, in reply to #43:
(1) Somebody who thinks anyone for whom there’s no Interpol red or blue notice out can feel safe from arrest when travelling to the US (or any other country in the world for that matter) is an idjit.
(2) If there really was a “security consultant” in Sofia who’d checked the Interpol lists and come to the erroneous conclusion from (1), that would confirm my supposition that any information OC had about law enforcement activity came from leaks within the notoriously corrupt Bulgarian system, not from Frank Schneider (although I’m sure Schneider would then present himself as an expert in interpreting that information).
Interpol red notices (for convicted criminals, or those awaiting trial) or blue notices (for any persons “of interest” in a police investigation) aren’t normally publicly available information.
Some red notices are made public, and can be found on the Interpol website, but only if it is believed that this might help in getting the person wanted apprehended.
Obviously, a lot of the time it is better not to alert the person being sought to the fact that theoretically all of the world’s police forces are on the lookout for them, not just those of one country.
Only people within the police, or in the criminal justice system, should be able to access this information.
At Passerby:
It doesn’t matter. The important thing is K got nabbed and nailed Scott.
The Sofia goon security squad have hardly shone as anything more than idiots. They let Ruja vanish with strangers, K go visit a den of Hell’s Angels and K get kidnapped in Sofia. They’re idiots.
Why not ask a former member of staff?
Who knows what was done or said.
Rocky:
We’re now in the stage of writing the history of OneCoin. The overall picture was of course clear all along, the remaining entertainment value is trying to piece together more details of what transpired behind the scenes, with access to information about things we could only guess at in general terms before.
That they’re all idiots (who, as is usual for idiots, believed themselves to be the smart ones) isn’t in dispute. The slightly smarter ones did a runner well before they could be nailed. A lot of the idiots are also still around, and with little to fear, because of the appalling lack of action of law enforcement in Europe throughout OC’s existence. Some of them have moved on to copycat scams. Some of them even post here, and are idiotic enought to believe they can convince people that they didn’t know they were willing participants in a criminal enterprise at all. That makes it even more important to keep on trying to establish the facts of what happened, and distinguish between facts and mere suppositions.
youtube.com/watch?v=z8VwXMUT1X8
share-your-photo.com/0e24f6a47f
youtube.com/watch?v=t4pZuKHS36I
share-your-photo.com/0103a4c724
youtube.com/watch?v=zRY4hhzY6gQ
share-your-photo.com/e50c082d1b
youtube.com/watch?v=iCGiEc7wuiQ
share-your-photo.com/458f7e6f40
After a long period of silence, Fernando Rys resumed tweeting, and, surprise, surprise, he’s inviting to a new scam (GNG):
twitter.com/fernando_rys
You can bet he’s the same guy, since the surviving tweets are related to Hong Kong, Dubai and something called OneWorld Foundation.