Co-founder of cryptocurrency pyramid scheme “OneCoin” pleads guilty
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announces that Karl Sebastian Greenwood, who co-founded OneCoin with Ruja Ignatova, a/k/a “the Cryptoqueen,” pleaded guilty on Friday in Manhattan federal court to wire fraud and money laundering charges in connection with his participation in the massive OneCoin fraud scheme.
OneCoin, which began operations in 2014 and was based in Sofia, Bulgaria, marketed and sold a fraudulent cryptocurrency by the same name through a global multi-level-marketing (“MLM”) network.
As a result of misrepresentations that Greenwood, Ignatova, and others made about OneCoin, victims invested over four billion dollars worldwide in the fraudulent cryptocurrency.
District Judge Edgardo Ramos accepted Greenwood’s guilty plea. Ignatova, who was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Top Ten Most Wanted List in June 2022, remains at large.
According to the allegations in the Superseding Information and other filings and statements made in court:
Greenwood was OneCoin’s “global master distributor” and the leader of the MLM network through which the fraudulent cryptocurrency was marketed and sold. In a video posted online, Ignatova attributed to him the idea of marketing and selling OneCoin through an MLM network structure. He earned approximately €20 million a month in his role as the top MLM distributor of OneCoin.
Greenwood was arrested at his residence on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand, in July 2018, and was extradited to the United States to face fraud and money laundering charges in October 2018. He has been detained since his arrest in July 2018.
Greenwood, 45, a citizen of Sweden and the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison, one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison.
The maximum potential sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by a judge. Sentencing before Judge Ramos is scheduled for April 5, 2023.