OneCoin Co-Founder Agrees to Testify Against His Sister 

The case against OneCoin continues to develop as authorities try to bring down its network of operators for good. In the latest development to the Ponzi scheme’s case, reports have confirmed that Konstantin Ignatova, one of its founders, has agreed to testify against his partner.

Ignatov Turns Into a Co-operating Ally

Ignatov recently settled a class action suit with OneCoin’s investors. The deal, which was revealed earlier this month, involved his name being expunged from the company’s liabilities to investors. While that was the big news, however, he also agreed to testify against his partner.

Ignatov and his sister, Ruja Ignatova, started OneCoin back in 2014. Along with a couple of promoters and business partners, the two managed to take the company global. At its height, OneCoin scammed thousands of people and siphoned up to $5 billion in investments.

The scammer was eventually arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport last year while trying to flee the country. Since then, he has been a key figure in bringing down OneCoin’s network and its many partners.

An Update On the OneCoin Situation

In November 2019, he told prosecutors in New York that Amer Abdulaziz Salman, the owner of Dubai-based horse racing brand Phoenix Thoroughbreds, had been a significant money clearer for the company. The Thoroughbreds racing firm was eventually banned from competing in France over Salman’s ties to the company. Soon after, the company withdrew from another horse racing competition in Britain.

Ignatov also helped to track down Mark Scott, a New York-based attorney who helped set up Ignatova’s money-laundering operation. In November, Scott got a guilty verdict after the court found that he had gotten a $50 million payday for laundering $400 million on Ignatova’s behalf.

Scott has tried to fight the guilty verdict, claiming that the government’s only proof against him was Ignatov’s testimony. Although he added that he hadn’t known about OneCoin’s scam operation, none of his arguments flew in court.

As for Ignatov, it’s worth noting that he could still face an extended spell behind bars. The scammer is still the primary subject in a case against OneCoin from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), which has been in court since November. The case levels several charges against him, including fraud and money laundering.

If found guilty, Ignatov could face up to 90 years in jail. As for Ignatova, she remains at large. The OneCoin mastermind known to many as “Cryptoqueen” fled her Bulgaria home in 2017 and hasn’t been seen since then.

The justice for OneCoin extends beyond just the company’s top brass and leading partners. Last month, reports confirmed that a court in Singapore had fined Fok Fook Seng, a local businessman who promoted a multilevel marketing scheme with ties to the scam operation.

Fok had allegedly promoted his MLM scheme through online seminars on Facebook between January 2016 and June 2017. The scheme sold packages of online education courses, while also including free “promotional tokens.” He also convinced buyers that they could use his tokens to mine more OneCoin. 

Under Singapore’s Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling Prohibition Act, he was fined 100,000 Singapore dollars — about $72,000 at the time.