Bulgarian FSC regulator issues Onecoin warning
BehindMLM reader “Ben” has been recording statistical data pertaining to OneCoin accounts for some time now.
Yesterday Ben shared an abnormality pertaining to OneCoin accounts in Bulgaria, in that during the month of September, the number of Bulgarian OneCoin accounts had been wiped to zero.
Now a reason has emerged potentially explaining why.
As per the statistical data compiled by Ben, OneCoin accounts in Bulgaria were on the rise until the week August 28th to September 4th.
That week saw a decline of twenty-four accounts, which was followed up by a decline of twenty-nine the next week.
The week beginning September 11th saw seven hundred and eleven out of seven hundred and twelve accounts wiped.
Clearly either Bulgarian OneCoin investors or the company itself were panicking, but nobody seemed to know why.
Here’s one possible reason:
In September Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission issued an investment warning for OneCoin.
Wrote the FSC on September 30th:
FSC are informing potential investors and consumers on the Internet that activities related to the acquisition, trading and payment OneCoin are not governed by existing EU and national legislation on capital markets.
At present OneCoin or other virtual currencies are not recognized and not treated as a financial instrument within the meaning of FIMA and compared them to the requirements of FIMA.
Potential investors and users should be aware that an investment in such “cryptocurrencies”, which already exceed 400 different varieties, poses a high risk.
In the event the owners of these opportunities files for bankruptcy, investors are not subject to compensation from the Compensation Fund.
Presumably the FSC’s warning comes after an investigation into OneCoin. And if OneCoin were made aware of the investigation, by way of data collection or enquiries by the FSC, that would explain why they nuked the Bulgarian investor accounts.
It also explains why OneCoin stopped paying investors around the first week of September, and why they might have recently changed banks.
Providing no explanation as to why, less than twenty-four hours ago OneCoin abruptly announced the banking change on their Facebook page.
Through their new bank, the location of which is not disclosed, OneCoin claim ‘all withdrawals have been executed and processed and should be in (affiliate’s) bank accounts soon‘.
Whether or not the FSC’s investigation prompted the change of bank is unclear. Ditto whether or not the FSC’s investigation is ongoing.
According to the FSC’s website,
The Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) was established on March 1st, 2003 under the Financial Supervision Commission Act.
It is an institution that is independent from the executive authority and reports its activity to the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria.
The Commission is a specialized government body for regulation and control over different segments of the financial system – capital market, insurance market, health insurance market, pension insurance market.
The “compensation fund” the FSC refers to is titled “Compensation Fund for Investors in Securities”.
The fund was established in 2005 and seeks to cover investors who lose funds if an investment scheme collapses.
What the FSC are pointing out in their warning is that OneCoin is an unregistered security in Bulgaria. As such, in the event of OneCoin collapsing, investors will not be able to make claims through the Compensation Fund.
Both the FSC and the US SEC are signatories to the IOSCO Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMOU).
Pursuant to the MMOU, signatories agree, among other items, to provide certain critical information, to permit use of that information in civil or administrative proceedings, to onward share information with self-regulatory organizations and criminal authorities, and to keep such information confidential.
In particular, the MMOU provides for the following:
- Sharing information and documents held in the regulators’ files;
- Obtaining information and documents regarding transactions in bank and brokerage accounts, and the beneficial owners of such accounts;
- Taking or compelling a person’s statement or, where permissible, a person’s testimony.
In addition to that, the SEC and FSC signed a separate MOU between the regulators back in 2013:
The Requesting Authority may use non-public information obtained under this MoU solely for the purpose of supervising Covered Entities and seeking to ensure compliance with the laws or regulations of the Requesting Authority.
To date OneCoin has given no indication that it is under investigation in Bulgaria or anywhere else. Nor has the company addressed the FSC investor warning.
How long OneCoin’s new banking channels continue to process funds for the scheme remains to be seen. Stay tuned…
Footnote: As I was putting this article together the FSC website fell apart.
It is currently showing a 404 error page where the OneCoin warning was (a lot of the site is currently missing), so for now I’ve included a screenshot of the Google cache and search listing for the warning.
well, regulatory interest has come sooner than you expected oz!
with bulgaria being the home ground of onecoin, a warning from bulgarian regulators will put ruja ignatova in a tight spot.
onecoin was banking with the DSK bank in bulgaria, up until their announcement today, that they were changing banks.
so, bulgarian investor accounts are cancelled and bulgarian banking is dropped – is ruja moving onecoin out of bulgaria?
how come bulgarian investors Allowed their accounts to be cancelled? were they paid off or were their accounts just shifted to some other country? if any pissed off bulgarian investors complain to their regulators, a fullon investigation into onecoin could begin in bulgaria!
the news about the MMOU between the SEC and FSC, will come as a shock to US onecoin recruiters, who believed they were very safe working with an east european ponzi.
something tells me the las vegas onecoin event from oct 16th onwards, may not happen after all.
Very possible they just changed the Country those accounts said they were from.
As far as ” allowing their accounts to be cancelled” goes. They would have no choice in the matter. They would just be able to complain about it to make people aware.
The Bulgarian FSC Financial Supervision Commission most likely have a similar function as other European agencies of the same type = it only supervises registered financial services, and publish warnings if a company isn’t registered.
FSC isn’t an enforcement agency, i.e. it won’t do the same type of investigation as SEC does. It won’t bring a case to court.
Finanstilsynet.no/en/
Warning list:
finanstilsynet.no/markedsadvarsler/
The warning list looks like this = warnings from similar authorities in other countries.
Random warning example — Henderson Global Trading:
finanstilsynet.no/Global/Markedsadvarsler/2015/Henderson_Global_Trading.pdf
Bulgarian example in English:
finanstilsynet.no/Global/Markedsadvarsler/2015/BROKERAGE_HRISTO_IVANOV_EOOD.pdf
The warning from FSC here is too lengthy to copy. It starts like this:
Here’s the international warning list … International Organization of Security Commissions IOSCO.
iosco.org/investor_protection/?subsection=investor_alerts_portal
It had an annoying “website survey” when I visited it, asking about whether I was a regulator, investor, etc., how often I used the site, etc., etc.
IOSCO seems to be the official international investor warning site, used by financial supervisors in multiple jurisdictions (124 national Security Commissions in 124 jurisdictions).
They actually moved all amounts to Romania….Check out the numbers!
12Sep-21Sep
Bulgaria -711
Romania +937 …. (normally around +100/week)
Rom +937 (not 934)
No surprise at all…It was surely under investigation and they decided to move all accounts abroad.
In Finland Tommi Vuorinen and other leaders were questioned by The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) (Finnish: Keskusrikospoliisi (KRP) for several hours.
I think if Onecoin HQ was located in Finland, it would have been closed several months ago.
BEN, are there any links about that?
There are some links in a different article, but not exactly what you’re asking for. It’s “close enough”.
behindmlm.com/companies/onecoin-under-police-investigation-in-finland/
M Norway, I am planning to use those links when speak to OneCoin fans, so only the confirmed facts would work there.
In April the newspapers wrote a lot about it:
NOLINK://www.hs.fi/talous/a1429846410546
NOLINK://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/art-1432515064198.html
NOLINK:://pjarvinen.blogspot.fi/2015/04/krp-alkaa-selvittaa-onecoinin.html
—————————————————————
New facts was revealed first on a radio show 10th Sep:
NOLINK://www.radiorock.fi/#!/muu/OneCoin
NOLINK://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnn1O26UJVM
Tommi Vuorinen (unofficially the president of Onecoin in Finland) said that lately he was several times (once as long as 5 hours) at the police station “giving more explanations” “showing several documents” to the policemen who had new questions. Tommi’s own opinion was that he showed them that everything so far has been done legally by Onecoin.
—————————————————————
Then it has been discussed at a Finnish discussion forum:
NOLINK://keskustelu.suomi24.fi/t/13828150/onecoiniin-sotkeutuneet-krpn-kuulusteluissa
But officially there has not been any releases about Onecoin as in Bulgaria yet. But surely they are watching Onecoin closely because almost 7500 Finns have joined Onecoin and some people put over 100.000€.
I told some friends who are waiting for the money since 7.9-14.9…that this is actually good news for them. Onecoin has to prove that everything is OK, and it is only a way. To pay out all cash withdrawn in September.
6800 new members last 7 days… after the split. That is 970/day. It was 3700 per day before the split. New updated stats coming tomorrow (the same link)
NOLINK://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UPuhJAZ_NuEdLJYgtmvQPDbli83YxYGtuLLnrCBasbg/edit?usp=sharing
Just an update. Bulgarian FSC website was probably just reorganizing layout.
The warning against Onecoin investment is now at this URL:
fsc.bg/en/news/saobshtenie-onecoin-7726.html
and now onecoin shuts down US operations:
onecoin had taken legal advice before launching in the US. they had temporarily hired kevin thompson, MLM attorney, but apparently things did not work out with him.
ruja ignatova launched onecoin USA, without any registration or corporate presence.
i think the warning from the FSC in their home country bulgaria, has sent ruja&party clambering for safety. they are sweating Fear now.
I think you lying about the Bulgarian FSC regulator issues Onecoin warning. I have gone through all the warnings list of
fsc.bg/en/european-affairs/warnings/2016/
The is no warning about ONECOIN. Are just trying to blog ONECOIN or what?
As you can see in the article, the warning was issued in Bulgarian. You linked the FSC’s English website.
The warning wasn’t issued in English. Furthermore you linked to 2016 warnings. Check the datestamp of the article before looking like a dumbass.
Oz, the only way to build trust on onecoiners and make your way into their brain is to charge them several thousand euros.
The idea of anyone giving them a free advice or a warning which could save them a lot of money is just beyond them.
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! Wrong year. Thanks for playing “premature rebuttal fools”. Do you want to play again?