Sentencing of OneCoin leader Konstantin Ignatov gets moved to July
The April 8 sentencing control date is adjourned to July 8, 2020, Judge Edgardo Ramos of the New York Southern District Court said.
The sentencing of Konstantin Ignatov, the leader of fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin, has been rescheduled. In response to a Letter filed by the US Government, Judge Edgardo Ramos has determined that the April 8 sentencing control date is adjourned to July 8, 2020 at 10:00am.
As FinanceFeeds has reported, the Government had requested the adjournment because Ignatov’s cooperation is not yet complete.
Konstantin Ignatov, the leader of OneCoin Ltd., a company marketing a purported cryptocurrency named “OneCoin,” was arrested on March 6, 2019, at the Los Angeles International Airport. He is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Together with his sister Ruja Ignatova and others, Ignatov made representations about OneCoin, and, as a result, victims invested billions of dollars worldwide in the fraudulent cryptocurrency.
According to the allegations contained in the Complaint, starting in late 2017, Ignatov, assumed high-level positions at OneCoin, rising to the top leadership position by mid-2018.
OneCoin Ltd. operates as a multi-level marketing network through which members receive commissions for recruiting others to purchase cryptocurrency packages. This multi-level marketing structure appears to have influenced rapid growth of the OneCoin member network. Indeed, OneCoin Ltd. has claimed to have more than 3 million members worldwide, including victims living and/or working within the Southern District of New York.
Among a number of other representations, OneCoin Ltd. has claimed that the OneCoin cryptocurrency is “mined” using mining servers maintained and operated by the company, and that the value of OneCoin is based on market supply and demand. In fact, the value of OneCoin is determined internally and not based on market supply and demand; and OneCoins are not mined using computer resources.
Additionally, OneCoin Ltd. has claimed to have a private “blockchain,” or a digital ledger identifying OneCoins and recording historical transactions. The investigation has revealed that OneCoin lacks a true blockchain, that is, a public and verifiable blockchain.
Furthermore, Ignatov has repeatedly represented that an “initial public offering” of OneCoin would occur on various dates in 2018 and 2019, in an effort to generate excitement and solicit additional investments from member victims. However, the purported offering was repeatedly postponed, and no such offering has taken place.
