OneCoin is a network company registered in Gibraltar which was established in 2014 by Bulgarian Ruja Ignatova. The concept has also been fronted through the company OneLife Network and several other companies. In Italy, OneCoin has been declared an illegal pyramid scheme, and in many other countries the authorities have warned its citizens against investing money in the concept. According to the FBI, more than 30 billion kroner has been invested in what is called an illegal international pyramid scheme. Also in Norway, Økokrim in its threat assessment for 2020 has concluded that OneCoin «appears as a pyramid scheme linked to something that is supposed to be a cryptocurrency, but is a fraud [...]». Ecocrime writes that the fraud "is believed to have attracted close to 4 billion euros between 2014 and 2018 with links to organized criminals in the Balkans".
OneCoin markets itself as an alternative to Bitcoin in addition to offering the opportunity to make money by recruiting new participants. It is so far not possible to use Onecoin for transactions outside the members' networks, but it has long been claimed that thousands of outlets that accept OneCoin as a means of payment will soon be linked. Members are offered a separate MasterCard, but this payment card can so far not be used to pay with recovered cryptocurrency, only regular money. The company claims to be one of the largest alternatives to Bitcoin, but OneCoin is not listed on any of the major exchanges for virtual currency trading. The exception is the website Xcoinx.com, where OneCoin is ranked as the most in-demand cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. However, the website does not reveal who is behind it, and it is believed to have been created by the same people who are behind OneCoin.
It is not possible to buy the virtual currency directly, but members invest in training packages that cost up to € 36,000. The training program is called OneAcademy. In 2015, a Finnish IT expert reviewed the contents of the training packages and found that large parts of them were copied from the book Gold Trading Boot Camp by Gregory T. Wilson and other easily accessible literature. In 2017, Aftenposten did a similar check and came to the same result. These packages also include so-called tokens that can be used to dig out OneCoins. Members have been tempted with the prospect of winning around 100 times the bet over the course of two years. The best returns are promised from the most expensive packages.
The concept has been most widespread in Asia and Europe.
Status from country to country
In 2019, the Australian authorities issued an official warning against OneCoin.
In July 2016, the FSMA issued an official warning against OneCoin targeting Belgian citizens.
In November 2016, the Belgian politician Laurent Louis was charged with, among other things, pyramid schemes, fraud and money laundering. He is said to have recruited between 2,000 and 3,000 people to the OneCoin network.
In Belize, in May 2017, the financial authorities warned against OneCoin and ordered the company to close down all operations.
The company OneLife Network Limited was originally registered in Belize, but in 2018 was deleted from the country's company register.
In Bulgaria, in September 2015, the authorities issued an official warning to get involved with OneCoin. In January 2018, Bulgarian authorities raided OneCoin's offices in the capital Sofia. 50 people were arrested and questioned, and servers were seized.
In April 2016, the Colombian authorities issued an official warning against investing in OneCoin, and made it clear that the cryptocurrency is not approved as a means of payment in the country.
In Finland, the authorities have been concerned about the proliferation of Onecoin, and the concept has been compared to the Finnish pyramid scheme WinCapita. However, the police investigations were terminated without any formal investigation being initiated. However, the police determined that the returns predicted were not realistic. In 2017, a new investigation was opened in Finland, and one of the key people in the Finnish network had assets seized. It gradually became clear that this was a tax evasion of around half a million euros.
In the autumn of 2019, YLE gained insight into documents that showed that tens of thousands of Finnish citizens had invested in OneCoin, a total of at least 40 million euros. The journalists also got an interview with Kari Wahlroos who until 2017 had been one of OneCoin's highest paid recruits. He admitted that he had realized early on that OneCoin was "too good to be true", but continued to build the network as it was financially very lucrative for him. After leaving OneCoin, Wahlroos has joined rival DagCoin.
In April, civilian police forces attended a recruitment meeting in Mumbai, and when this was completed, 18 OneCoin promoters were arrested and charged with spreading Ponzi scams. Later, indictments were issued in India against a number of key people in the OneCoin network, among them Ruja Ignatova.
In December 2016, the Italian authorities declared that all marketing of OneCoin had to be stopped, and through a temporary injunction, several websites promoting the concept were closed. In August 2017, Italian authorities fined OneCoin a fine of 2.6 million euros. Six key promoters have been arrested and charged with fraud. Three people are also said to have been stopped at an airport with over 100,000 euros in cash originating from OneCoin operations.
In June 2017, Kazakh police took action against the local OneCoin network, and the main man, Dilbar Mirsaitova, was arrested and placed under house arrest.
In the spring of 2016, the Chinese authorities launched a major investigation into OneCoin. A number of members were arrested and valuables worth NOK 250 million were seized. The authorities then estimated that around NOK 800 million had been invested in OneCoin by Chinese members. At the same time, the company's agreement on payments by bank card was stopped.
In March 2017, the Croatian Central Bank published a statement urging great caution when it comes to OneCoin, and that investments here must be considered highly risky.
In 2016, the Latvian authorities issued official warnings against OneCoin.
In August 2017, the financial authorities of Luxembourg issued a warning to their citizens that OneCoin was not regulated by them
In the summer of 2017, Macedonian authorities issued a warning claiming that OneCoin was a Ponzi scheme.
In Malta, in April 2017, an official warning was issued against OneCoin.
The State Bank of Mauritius warned in August 2017 against the high risk of investing money in OneCoin and similar concepts.
In September 2016, the Dutch financial authorities issued a recommendation to exercise extreme caution with regard to OneCoin, with reference to police investigations in the United Kingdom.
Dutchman Igor Alberts was the highest paid recruiter at OneCoin, and admitted in an interview with the BBC that he had earned tens of millions of euros on OneCoin together with his cohabitant Andreea Cimbala. After leaving OneCoin, they embarked on DagCoin, a concept that is a blueprint of OneCoin.
In December 2018, the authorities in New Zealand issued an official warning to their citizens against the companies OneLife Network Limited and OneCoin Limited.
In Nigeria, the government has warned its citizens against investing money in cryptocurrencies such as OneCoin.
In Norway, no specific assessment has been made of OneCoin, but Finanstilsynet has on a general basis warned against investing money in cryptocurrency. In 2016, the Norwegian Lotteries Authority sent a letter to OneCoin in Norway with a statement on the Norwegian regulations. Representatives of the company have denied that OneCoin is a Ponzi scam, and the company's Norwegian lawyer has claimed that the company cannot be a pyramid scheme because members are not forced to recruit new members. The direct sales association has warned strongly against OneCoin and characterized it as a fraud concept. Several banks have refused their clients to transfer money to OneCoin. In April 2017, lawyer Per Danielsen stated that OneCoin had no business in Norway and therefore believed that the Norwegian Lotteries Authority's statement did not concern them, despite the fact that there were 5,000 Norwegian OneCoin members. In November 2019, Aftenposten revealed that operations were still ongoing in Norway.
In its threat assessment for 2020, Ecocrime has concluded that "OneCoin appears as a pyramid scheme linked to what is supposed to be a cryptocurrency, but is a fraud that is believed to have attracted close to 4 billion euros between 2014 and 2018 with links to organized criminals in the Balkans. . »
In August 2017, it was announced that the Pakistani authorities had started an investigation into OneCoin.
In September 2016, the Polish consumer authorities launched a formal investigation into OneCoin following an initiative from the Minister of Justice in the country where misleading marketing was suspected.
Portugal In November 2017, the Portuguese central bank issued an official warning against OneCoin.
Russian authorities have declared OneCoin illegal.
In 2018, the central bank in Samoa initiated an investigation of OneCoin, and that the country's residents were warned against investing money in this and similar concepts.
In Slovenia, the authorities have warned against OneCoin. In 2019, a representative of OneCoin was listed as a speaker at a seminar on cryptocurrency, which led to a storm of reactions against the organizer due to the link to OneCoin. The organizer responded by removing the relevant speaker from the program.
In 2016, the British authorities stated that they had started an investigation of OneCoin and that people who thought they had been cheated by the company had to contact the police. In September 2019, the police in London informed that the investigation had been completed without any charges being brought, but that the British police had cooperated with the American authorities in the case where Konstantin Ignatov had been arrested.
In the autumn of 2019, the BBC broadcast a radio documentary looking more closely at why founder Ruja Ignatova had suddenly disappeared from the public eye in 2017.
In the summer of 2020, it was revealed that the FCA had published the warning against OneCoin in 2017 following pressure from a PR agency hired by OneCoin.
Swiss authorities have warned their citizens against investing money in OneCoin.
OneCoin is said to have had a significant spread in Sweden, where around 56,000 members are to be recruited, compared with 6,000 in Norway. The Swedish Lottery Inspectorate has initiated an investigation into OneCoin on the basis of allegations of illegal pyramid schemes. In January 2016, the Lottery Inspectorate announced that a police report had been made on suspicion of illegal pyramid schemes. Finansinspektionen has characterized the concept as a bubble that can burst at any time.
In 2016, it provoked reactions when the bandy club Edsbyns IF had entered into a sponsorship agreement with OneCoin.
German authorities have warned their citizens against investing money in OneCoin.
In June 2016, it became known that an investigation of the company had been initiated in Germany. German consumer authorities have characterized the concept as a pyramid scheme.
In April 2017, the German authorities issued a notice that all activity related to OneCoin's straw company IMS International Marketing Services GmbH had to cease immediately, at the same time the company's accounts were blocked for transactions. OneCoin's response to this was to deny that the decision had any impact on their business as they considered IMS to be a legally separate company, but shortly afterwards BaFin issued a new statement in which they made it clear that the notice applied to all business related to OneCoin and their related companies. IMS was originally a straw company associated with the Norwegian-Swedish pyramid game Enigro / Uanico / Sitetalk, and when the rest of this was incorporated into OneCoin, IMS was used to channel money from German members and over to OneCoin. When the company's accounts were blocked, there were 29 million euros in these, but it was estimated that a total of around 360 million euros had been transferred via this channel.
In Uganda, the central bank has issued an official warning against OneCoin.
I 2015 advarte the hungarian central banks mot å investere i konsepter som OneCoin.
Generally speaking, the OneCoin is required to be issued with a marked license in the USA, so that it is strictly adhered to by the applicable Ponzi scheme. I the degree OneCoin har blitt utbredt i USA har det i stor degree skjedd under dekke av annen virksomhet. Så also da Ruja Ignatovas bror Konstantin Ignatov bought California in mars 2019 for å lede et promoteringsmøte for OneCoin. Ved inreise til USA oppga han at han var i lands for å trene mixed martial arts, men på social media etterlot helt other motiver. Since han skulle forlate ends igjen ble han arrestert and siktet for bedrageri. Også Ruja Ignatova and American Mark S. Scott are included in siktelsen, and tiltal points have a samlet tightening frame on 85 års fengsel. Scott blew up for å hvitvaske 400 million dollars.
Under Scott's lifeline, there were strangers at Ruja Ignatova who had betalt 300,000 dollars for et møte in Hong Kong with investors Neil Bush, bror til more president George W. Bush. Scott hevdet at forbindelsene til Bush hadde overbevist ham om at OneCoin var legal forretningsvirksomhet.
In the autumn of 2016, the Vietnamese authorities launched an investigation into OneCoin.
The Austrian authorities warned in 2016 against investing money in OneCoin, which was described as a pyramid scheme.
Ruja Ignatova is the company's founder and was until October 2016 OneCoin's top manager. She is the daughter of the Bulgarian financier Plamen Ignatov. Together they bought the company IG Metall in 2010, but went bankrupt after a short time. They were accused by the workers of having drained the company of assets prior to the bankruptcy. Ignatova's brother Konstantin Ignatov fills the role of Head of Global Administration.
The Finnish TV station YLE announced in March 2016 that the money paid to OneCoin will be forwarded to the company One Network Services Ltd. This company is controlled by Veska Ignatov who is the mother of Ruja Ignatova. Significant sums must have been invested in properties via straw companies in tax havens.
One of the main characters in Onecoin was the British Nigel Allan, founder of the former MLM company Geon. Following disagreements with founder Ignatova, he is said to have joined the establishment of the competing company Crypto888 in the spring of 2015 and the cryptocurrency Octacoin.
In the spring of 2015, OneCoin entered into a partnership with the MLM company Conligus. At the beginning of 2016, Sitetalk was also incorporated, and it was claimed that 400,000 members were migrated to OneCoin. In March 2016, a similar partnership was established with the network company Univerteam. In the country of origin Brazil, Univerteam has been investigated by the police for pyramid schemes. The company's founder, Alexander Arenales, was also behind the Brazilian Ponzi scam Multiclick, which managed to gather around 300,000 people before it was closed by the Brazilian authorities in 2013.
In 2013, Sebastian Greenwood and John Ng launched the cryptocurrency BigCoin through the network company Prosper Limited, which is registered in Hong Kong. In both, key roles were played in the pyramid company Enigro, which operated from 2009 to 2012. In 2013, attempts were made to continue parts of the concept under the concept name The Opportunity Network. That same year, Greenwood and Ng said goodbye to Prosper Limited for investing in OneCoin instead, and in January 2016, The Opportunity Network was incorporated into OneCoin. Ruja Ignatova was also involved in BigCoin before she established OneCoin. Sitetalk's former product manager Kenny Nordlund is also involved with OneCoin.
OneCoin collaborates with the company Loopium on electronic payment solutions. Loopium is registered in Gibraltar with an identical postal address as OneCoin, but is headquartered in Singapore and run by the Swedes Sebastian Greenwood and Björn Thomas. The company previously collaborated with the convicted financier Kristian Helgesen and former pyramid leader in World Games Inc. Jarl Moe, but these two Norwegians have later been reported by Greenwood and Thomas for having sold shares in Loopium without their permission.
In the spring of 2017, the German magazine Gerlach Report published a series of articles in which it was claimed that OneCoin was in fact controlled by the Bulgarian and Russian mafia. In this connection, the editorial staff was subjected to death threats.
OneCoin has had significant challenges with the banking system, and has had to change banks a number of times.
One of the most important complaints against OneCoin has been that there has been no decentralized blockchain, but the company has claimed that the cryptocurrency is based on a centralized blockchain. In 2016, the Norwegian cryptocurrency expert Bjørn Bjercke was tried to be recruited to OneCoin with the task of establishing a blockchain. Bjercke declined the offer and later called the concept a scam. This meant that OneCoin's Norwegian lawyer Per Danielsen filed a lawsuit against Bjercke, but the case was rejected by the conciliation board because it was perceived to be too complicated.
OneCoin has put a lot of energy into getting PR. In May 2015, the company bought advertising in the Bulgarian edition of Forbes, which has been incorrectly described by members as an editorial interview. In October of the same year, OneCoin was the main sponsor of a conference organized by The Economist, where Carl Bildt, among others, was one of the speakers. As the main sponsor, Ruja Ignatova also had speaking time at the conference. Ignatova was also named Businesswoman of the Year in Bulgaria in 2014 in a poll hosted by Bulgarian PR mogul Evgeni Minchev.
In 2014, Ignatova also established the charity One World Foundation. In the spring of 2015, the foundation stated that it was one of the most important financial supporters of the aid organization Seva Canada in their work for poor children with eye diseases. However, Seva Canada has denied any involvement with the One World Foundation.
In August 2015, the auditing company Semper Fortis withdrew from the collaboration with OneCoin after considering the wide range of warnings that the company is a Ponzi fraud and did not want to jeopardize its reputation. OneCoin claimed to its auditor that all negative publicity was generated by competitors.
Cryptocurrency and network sales