Karl Greenwood of OneCoin pleads guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering

OneCoin is still one of the biggest and most famous cases of a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme, but also one that the authorities are still unraveling to this day. Significant progress in the case was made only days ago, when one of the co-founders, Karl Greenwood, decided to plead guilty to charges of money laundering and wire fraud in connection with his role in the fraudulent, multi-billion dollar crypto project

According to the US Department of Justice, the counts before the defendant carry a maximum potential sentence of 20 years each. Meanwhile, the other co-founder of the fraudulent company, Dr. Ruja Ignatova, remains at large for the time being.

Karl Greenwood awaits his sentence

Karl Greenwood was originally arrested in 2018 in Thailand. However, he was then extradited to the United States, where he was facing charges in a Manhattan federal court. During the trial, he confessed to the charges before Judge Edgardo Ramos. The judge accepted the guilty plea, and is now expected to announce the sentence, which will happen on April 5th, 2023, according to the DoJ announcement.

The US Attorney for SDNY, Damian Williams, said that the guilty plea by OneCoin’s co-founder caps a week in the Southern District of New York. It also serves as a message that the authorities will continue to seek out all those who would exploit the crypto industry through illicit methods such as fraud, regardless of how sophisticated they may believe themselves to be.

The project’s other co-founder is still on the run

The DoJ noted that the other co-founder of the fraudulent project, Ruja Ignatova, remains on the run. The so-called Cryptoqueen has been among Europol’s most wanted fugitives for over eight months now. She has also been on the FBI’s list of the Top 10 Most Wanted ever since June 2022.

Ignatova was first charged with fraud and money laundering at the US District Court for the SDNY back on October 12th, 2017. At the same time, the court has issued a federal warrant for her arrest, forcing her on the run. The FBI reacted quickly, offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who could provide information leading to her arrest. However, Ignatova managed to get away, taking a commercial flight from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens, Greece. This was on October 25th, 2017, and ever since then, she was never again seen publicly.

The pair originally founded OneCoin in 2014, with headquarters in Sofia. From there, they sold their fraudulent scheme through MLM (Multi-Level Marketing). The false marketing of their project resulted in victims around the world falling for the scam, and losing over $4 billion before the scheme was exposed.

The DoJ noted that the structure of the scheme led to its rapid growth, and OneCoin’s promotional materials claim that more than three million people invested in the project’s fraudulent crypto packages. Around 4.037 billion EUR was generated in sales between Q4 2014 and Q4 2016, while the earned ‘profits’ amounted to around 2.735 billion EUR.