A federal judge in the Southern District of New York sentenced Karl Greenwood, one of the founders of the OneCoin pyramid scheme, to 20 years in prison for his involvement in the conspiracy, according to a statement from the attorney’s office on Tuesday.
Additionally, Greenwood was sentenced to forfeit $300 million, or about what he earned from the conspiracy, by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos.
OneCoin was founded in 2014 in Bulgaria, advertising itself as a cryptocurrency and claiming to have genuine value for investors. In truth, it was a pyramid scheme where investors received payments for recruiting new participants; it did not actually exist on the blockchain. OneCoin is thought to have scammed at least 3.5 million people out of more than $4 billion.
OneCoin’s “global master distributor” and “leader of the MLM (multi-level marketing) network through which the fraudulent cryptocurrency was marketed and sold,” according to the attorney’s office, was Greenwood. As a result, he received 5% of OneCoin’s monthly revenue worldwide.
He was held pending trial after being apprehended in Thailand in 2018 and being extradited to the United States. In December of last year, he entered a plea to the charges of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy.
Ruja Ignatova, a co-founder of the scheme and the “CryptoQueen,” is still at large and was included on the FBI’s Most Wanted list last year.
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