A few days ago the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Karl Sebastian Greenwood, one of the co-founders of OneCoin, had filed his guilty plea in New York court. He spearheaded OneCoin, one of the largest scam projects in the history of the crypto industry. At least $4 billion was stolen from gullible investors here.
OneCoin was “bitcoin killer”
Greenwood has admitted that he was guilty of a long list of criminal offenses. These include: wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering. Each of these offenses carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. That means Greenwood could end up behind bars for 60 years in the worst case scenario.
District Attorney Damian Williams called Greenwood one of the most notorious fraudsters ever. His OneCoin was promoted as a “bitcoin killer” and many people fell for these beautiful words. OneCoin was completely worthless from day one and eventually Greenwood and others involved made off with all the money.
OneCoin was a company founded in Bulgaria by Greenwood and Ruja Ignatova, better known as Cryptoqueen. Justice in the United States has managed to find out that already in 2014 both fraudsters knew very well that their cryptocurrency was completely worthless. So the only goal was to convince as many people as possible and to rob them of their money, so to speak.
Greenwood was making $20 million a month
OneCoin also made it very colorful. It was a classic Ponzi, where investors could recruit new people for a financial reward. This while of course there were no real products or services underlying the project. Everything was based on hot air and sweet talk from the founders.
Justice in the United States said that at one point Greenwood made at least $20 million a few months from the scam he set up. In total, an astronomical $4 billion was taken from investors.
On April 5 next year, Greenwood will hear from the judge what his sentence will be and how long he will be allowed to stay in a US prison.