BaFin clarify, OneCoin must cease and desist operations in Germany
In response to the German regulatory crackdown on OneCoin’s shell company IMS International Marketing Services, OneCoin issued a press-release claiming BaFin’s cease and desist did not specifically apply to OneCoin.
Please be informed that the recently published BaFin message does not relate to OneLife or OneCoin’s Business, but to IMS GmBh.
The company IMS is a Service Provider, who supported OneLife in Payment Facilitation and Marketing Services.
OneLife and OneCoin are separate and independent legal entities.
While IMS, OneCoin and OneLife might technically be “separate entities”, in reality all three are operated by OneCoin management.
BaFin are naturally aware of this, and today issued clarification on their earlier notice.
In a new April 18th directive specifically targeting OneCoin, BaFin wrote;
Following the cease and desist order to IMS International Marketing Services GmbH (IMS) on 5 April 2017, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) issued on 18 April 2017 a direct order to OneCoin Ltd, Dubai holding that the company is to immediately cease its business activities in Germany.
OneCoin Ltd is involved in the unauthorized business by virtue of the fact that it had investors make payments to IMS’ accounts and gave payment instructions to IMS.
Pursuant to § 4 (1) sentence 4 ZAG, BaFin’s powers also extend to enterprises involved in the initiation, conclusion or settlement of such business as well to the enterprise’s shareholders and the members of its governing bodies.
As I’m reading it, the last paragraph above effectively prohibits OneCoin from conducting any financial related business in Germany.
Should OneCoin continue to operate in Germany through its own name or any related “enterprise”, BaFin have the authority to fine the company 1.65 million EUR.
BaFin’s investigation into OneCoin revealed an estimate 25,000 victims in Germany with losses of over $424 million USD. The regulator has labelled OneCoin “one of the most dangerous money games of recent years”.
Update 28th April 2017 – On April 27th, BaFin issued a cease and desist banning OneCoin from operating or being promoted in Germany.
Those expensive >30 000€ packages and combos are not available nor visible in OneLife backend anymore.
To be more exact, they are no longer visible if the account has been registered from Europe. However they are visible for e.g. Asian accounts.
“Nothing suspicious here.”
udo deppisch, top onecoin recruiter, doesn’t care about BaFin and it’s stupid orders because he’s just going to go ahead and hold recruitment events in germany in may, 2017.
ulm, germany – 10th may 2017
nurnberg [nuremberg], germany – 11th may 2017
maybe he can explain to BaFin how he’s going to get onecoin investor funds out of germany? is he going to personally launder funds for onecoin?
-how to get onecoin investor funds out of anywhere…
At this point it has to be cash by hand-to-pocket, right?
Is there any other way for them to move money these days? Just wondering…
They are using a variety of ways. Some scammers still accept bank payments to take money from victims where others also take cash.
To get the money to OneLife they can probably still wire the funds to one of OneLife’s secret bank accounts. In doing so these people take precautions not to mention any suspicious words like ‘onecoin’ or ‘onelife’ in the description.
It is also suspected that some onecoiners are actually delivering cash at the company headquarters in Bulgaria. I guess it would be difficult and quite time consuming to travel with all this cash, but I’m sure that for the scammers higher up in the organisation trip to Bulgaria with a suitcase full of cash is well worth the effort.
This physical transport of cash money adds the risk of having to do some explaining to a customs agent at the airport. However it doesn’t leave a paper trail, and therefor may make it more difficult for authorities to detect and prove at a later stage.
This might be why some of these swindlers just hop on a plane or even take a car and drive to Bulgaria.
I laugh when I think of Kaj Naparstok’s stack of cash, stolen by the Vietnamese hooker. I bet a road trip with cash doesn’t always make it to headquarters. LOL
Perhaps something good could come from it.
He could have caught an STD 😉 Let’s just hope it hurts.
@NoSellOut – I’ve been told that their Dubai office sees quite a bit of hand delivery. I’ve been told this first hand.
i have informed BaFin about deppisch’s upcoming visit to germany, just in case someone wants to ask him how he is planning to transfer money to onecoin headquarters.
hinweisgeberstelle(at)bafin.de
BaFin responded to my mail:
BaFin responded promptly. udo deppisch should certainly be careful about holding recruitment events in germany.
Anjali, I wish I had seen this post earlier, but this is a big no-no. You don’t tip off the promoters of this Ponzi of possible law enforcement attendance so they don’t go and do the meeting as scheduled.
He could have easily been arrested if he was offering a means to send OneCoin money in violation of the ban by BaFin. This could have scared him off from going and cancel the event.
Not sure if he went or not, but never let them know what is happening behind the scenes. It’s why the investigators don’t tell what or who they are investigating. They don’t want them running to avoid prosecution.