As OneCoin’s co-founder and leader, Karl Sebastian Greenwood ran one of the largest fraud schemes ever committed.

Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the US Department of Justice for “his orchestration of the massive OneCoin fraud scheme.”

Greenwood and his co-conspirator, Ruja Ignatova, were found guilty by the US District Judge Edgardo Ramos of selling a bogus cryptocurrency dubbed “OneCoin” over a global multi-level-marketing network and defrauding clients of $4 billion globally.

Despite being sentenced to jail, Igantova is still missing. She’s been on the FBI’s (“FBI”) Top Ten Most Wanted List since June 2022.

OneCoin has been Demolished

As OneCoin’s co-founder and leader, Karl Sebastian Greenwood ran one of the largest fraud schemes ever committed.

Greenwood and his co-conspirators, including fugitive Ruja Ignatova, duped unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars by promising a ‘financial revolution’ and claiming OneCoin would be the ‘Bitcoin killer, said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.

“OneCoins were completely worthless, leaving investors with nothing while Greenwood pocketed over $300 million. We hope that this substantial sentence reverberates across the financial industry and deters anybody who may be tempted to deceive investors and abuse the cryptocurrency ecosystem through fraud.”

Greenwood and Ignatova scammed nearly 3.5 million clients globally of $4 billion between 2014 and 2016. Karl made $300 million in personal gains as a result of his efforts. The DOJ describes Greenwood’s opulent lifestyle, which he funded with his illegal income.

When the scam eventually failed, it was widely considered the first and largest criminal fraud employing cryptocurrencies in history. The illegal scam affected over 3.5 million people worldwide.

OneCoin was a multilevel marketing scam that paid participants a commission for bringing others to the program. Greenwood collaborated with Ruja Ignatova, the so-called “Cryptoqueen” who is currently on the FBI’s most wanted criminal list in the United States.

Both promoted OneCoin as the future Bitcoin (BTC) in the crypto industry, but Greenwood was the primary advocate of the pyramid scam.

Arrested OneCoin Founders

“Greenwood was arrested in July 2018 at his residence on the Thai island of Koh Samui and extradited to the United States in October 2018 to face fraud and money laundering charges. Greenwood has been held since his arrest in July 2018,” according to the DOJ.

Karl was also forced to lose $300 million, the same amount he made through the OneCoin fraud. He spent a large portion of his fortune on real estate in Spain, Dubai, and Thailand. He also took a luxurious trip in a private OneCoin plane, purchased expensive apparel, and put a down payment on a Sunseeker boat.

According to United States District Judge Edgardo Ramos, the scam was huge in every way. He highlighted several of the crypto scheme’s flaws, which raised a red signal. To begin, he stated that OneCoin lacked a blockchain, a legitimate cryptocoin, and a trading market. Victims were unable to withdraw their investments in the businesses, and it is unlikely that they will ever receive their funds back.

Ruja Ignatova, on the other hand, “was accused of OneCoin-related money laundering and fraud in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and a federal order has been granted for her imprisonment.”

Closing Thoughts

Ignatova was last seen in public on October 25, 2017, when she boarded a commercial aircraft from Sofia, Bulgaria to Athens, Greece.

In June 2022, Ignatova was named to the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List. The FBI is providing a $100,000 reward for details that result in the capture of Ignatova.

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OneCoin Co-founder Sentenced To 20 Years In Jail For $4B Scam was originally published in Invest Gaming Journal on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.