Monday 8th October was the most highly anticipated day for onecoiners around the world. After years of waiting patiently, disappointment after disappointment, the coin was supposed to finally go public. Alleged 3.5 million members and billions of coins that they had not been hodling but instead forced to hold for years.
Well, of course nothing happened. The coin didn't go public and there still is no exchange to sell onecoins. Not that it really even matters because the coins are absolutely worthless and there's no point organizing an exchange for a certain failure. But there are still a lot of members who simply don't believe there's a smell until shit hits the fan.
In fact, the going-public date was already postponed a couple months back. As a custom of the company nothing was officially informed to the members and they were just left baffled without any information about the future of their possessed coins. For now there isn't any information available when the coin is going to go public. Of course dates don't even matter, because OneCoin can always continue postponing things.
On Monday there was also supposed to be the beginning of OneCoin's ICO – or "CO" to be exact. In an OneCoin event there was people celebrating and filming while a counter on the ICO webpage was closing zero. Little did they know that the ridiculous counter was ticking according to the time zone they were in, and most of the world was still hours away from the big moment. Well, the counter did go to zero accompanied by music, Europe's The Final Countdown, but nothing happened.
New DealShaker (aka DealShitter) platform was supposed to be launched during September. That didn't happen either. The latest information implies that the site would be launched at the end of October. But this is OneCoin we're talking about – the future of delays – so anything might not ever happen.
After never getting its first ICO started it was time for another effort. All began with an informational period, which I think was supposed to attract people outside the scheme to invest in OneCoin without participating the pyramid scam part of it.
OneCoin ICO – Informational Period
"Informational period (September 8– October 7, 2018)
Conducting an information campaign aimed at fully informing the participants about the project."
All in all OneCoin's ICO scam is an embarrassment even by ICO scam standards. The website is still missing information that would be presented on a website of any other ICO (scam) that was taking itself seriously.
This Coin Offering doesn't even follow its roadmap. The first round of the CO was already going on for weeks but there was no way to participate. Currently the website is linked to another one that makes it possible to sign up for the CO.
Participation to the CO requires participants to go through KYC procedure. However, KYC doesn't seem to be required for making deposits. Only proceeding further requires the participants to be KYC compliant. This procedure isn't constructed to prevent terrorists and criminals from laundering money through OneCoin. A more accurate term for this procedure would be KYV (Know Your Victims), a procedure that many modern scams use. KYV isn't required for deposits but for withdrawals, and some times also to delay stuff that is supposed to happen after a deposit has been done. It's a useful tool for keeping scams running longer.
Of course, in reality OneCoin doesn't actually need KYC procedure at all, because the most effective money laundering repellant OneCoin has is the coin itself. The worthless coin that has no exchanges surely doesn't attract anyone in their right mind.
The company being unable to provide answers to the members desperately asking questions, OneCoin scammers decided during the early summer of 2018 to set up exclusive GLG (Global Leaders Group) and Inner Circle groups to spread misinformation among the members and strengthen their belief to the ponzi.
However, there's a contradiction in the sheer existence of GLG and Inner Circle. The company has specifically warned not to trust any information released by any other sources than the company itself. OneLife newsletter August 13 gives an important reminder to the members: "Only trust information that you receive from the official corporate emails or the one that you find published via the official corporate channels." – A rhetoric question: What is the purpose of GLG and Inner Circle then?
I guess the sources not to be trusted should include the head of the GLG and Inner Circle groups, Konstantin Ignatov, because he has been caught lying in public twice already.
During an event in July in Argentina Ignatov announced that according to report by investigators the company was clean from any allegations about violating laws.
Konstantin Ignatov: "The investigators didn't even find one thing to support their allegations." ... "In those 3000 pages (referring to the alleged report) they didn't even find one law that was violated."
– In fact, on the contrary to Ignatov's claims the investigation by Europol and German police is still ongoing. The focus of the investigation is in organised commercial fraud, money laundering, pyramid sales providing financial services without authorization and providing payment services without permission. The investigation is being conducted against eight suspects, mainly employees of one of the companies of the OneCoin group registered in Germany. Ruja Ignatova is among the persons suspected. Source: Bulgarian Capital 25 October.
Another one of Konstantin Ignatov's lies is a petty one in comparison, but it certainly doesn't lack in magnitude. On his Facebook post 30 August, Konstantin was boasting: "Being featured in one of the biggest magazines, with 10 million readers."
That was of course a lie. Numbers magazine has only 3.000 copies printed. In addition OneCoin had most likely paid for the article to be published. The company happened to be sponsoring the magazine at that time.
The company doesn't seem to be interested to answer even to the most important questions the members have:
– There's still no information when OneCoin is supposed to go public.
– Several members have lost their coins that were deposited into so called CoinSafe. The idea was to deposit OneCoins in CoinSafe for a period of 1 or 2 years after which an interest was supposed to be paid according to the deposited sum. There are members who lost their coins about half year ago and still haven't received them.
– Members who bought OFC (OneCoin Future Certificates) during OneCoin's failed IPO process in 2017 still don't know what happens to their Future Certificates.
The Global (Mis)Leaders Group and the Inner Circle provide only disinformation or occasionally admit that there isn't any information available.
Cape Cod Times reported 13 September that a man has been arrested and charged of conspiracy to commit money laundering involving 400 million dollars from OneCoin ponzi-pyramid scam. The news from the U.S. truly underline the fact that OneCoin is an international criminal organisation.
The news article mentions that the FBI, IRS and Barnstable police executed a federal search warrant at Scott's house on September 5th. The indictment refers to some unknown individuals so I suppose there might be some more arrests to come – unless already arrested.As far as I know Mark S. Scott had no public relations to OneCoin. Cape Cod Times tells us that he has a law degree, 22-year career in law and license to practice law in Florida.
According to Bulgarian Capital OneCoin already denied having any connections to money laundering by Mark S. Scott. However, I don't think that the FBI and the law enforcement of the U.S. just fabricates claims of OneCoin's connection to the money laundering out of thin air. Such statement must be based on investigated facts.
Well, of course nothing happened. The coin didn't go public and there still is no exchange to sell onecoins. Not that it really even matters because the coins are absolutely worthless and there's no point organizing an exchange for a certain failure. But there are still a lot of members who simply don't believe there's a smell until shit hits the fan.
In fact, the going-public date was already postponed a couple months back. As a custom of the company nothing was officially informed to the members and they were just left baffled without any information about the future of their possessed coins. For now there isn't any information available when the coin is going to go public. Of course dates don't even matter, because OneCoin can always continue postponing things.
On Monday there was also supposed to be the beginning of OneCoin's ICO – or "CO" to be exact. In an OneCoin event there was people celebrating and filming while a counter on the ICO webpage was closing zero. Little did they know that the ridiculous counter was ticking according to the time zone they were in, and most of the world was still hours away from the big moment. Well, the counter did go to zero accompanied by music, Europe's The Final Countdown, but nothing happened.
 |
| ... Nope, it wasn't launched. |
New DealShaker (aka DealShitter) platform was supposed to be launched during September. That didn't happen either. The latest information implies that the site would be launched at the end of October. But this is OneCoin we're talking about – the future of delays – so anything might not ever happen.
OneCoin ICO II
After never getting its first ICO started it was time for another effort. All began with an informational period, which I think was supposed to attract people outside the scheme to invest in OneCoin without participating the pyramid scam part of it.
OneCoin ICO – Informational Period
"Informational period (September 8– October 7, 2018)
Conducting an information campaign aimed at fully informing the participants about the project."
The awkward Informational Period ended on October 7. However, it was far from being informational, if anything it was just confusing and disinformational. – Not that we were expecting much else.
During this "information campaign" there has been some strange modifications to the ICO site. Suddenly almost all logos related to OneCoin were removed, probably just to make any visual connection to the mother scam barely visible. Strangely there still is a "project video" that includes OneCoin logo. The logo also appears as a favicon of the browser tab, and the website still has a link to OneCoin's YouTube channel. Throughout the website word "OneCoin" has been replaced with "ONE Coin".
Some information related to OFC token was removed. The Smart Contract of the ICO was deleted at the very beginning of this campaign. I guess it was a bit too embarrassing to reveal that 120 billion Ethereum based tokens were to be created for this coin offering – exactly the amount that is supposed to be the finite number of OneCoins issued.
On Friday 14 September the T&C and FAQ sections of the website were finally published.
According to the terms and conditions the company responsible of the ICO is an offshore company from Panama. To be exact:
AHS Latam S. A., reg. number 155655623-2-2017, with registered office address: 69 Street, P. H. Alfa Real Building, Suite 2, San Francisco, Panama City, Republic of Panama.
The following names can be found connected to AHS Latam SA: Jorge Luis Herrera, Brendy Escalona, Irina Pilava, Christina Antonis Solomou and Andri Andreou.
Jorge Luis Herrera and Brendy Escalona are lawyers of Robles and Robles law firm.
Irina Pilava doesn't seem to have any public connections to OneCoin that could be found online. A person with an identical name appears in Offshore Leaks Database, but that only figures because OneCoin has a track record of using offshore companies.
Christina Antonis Solomou has no public connections to OneCoin either, but a connection to Irina Pilava can be found. Apparently they have a connection related to a business in Panama.
Andri Andreou has no public relations to OneCoin. He is also one of the directors of AHS AMERICAS S.A., a company which has all the persons above aboard including the law firm Robles and Robles.
Robles and Robles (Robles y Robles) has operated as an agent for thousands of offshore companies so its involvement in OneCoin related company isn't anything peculiar per se. However, I found that Robles and Robles is also the agent behind a Panamian company named Servicios De Educacion Online, S.A. One of the directors of that company is Alexandro Marco Vinicio Ortega Mejia who happens to be also the director of One Life Servicios República Dominicana, Network One Servicos Eireli (Brazil) and One Network Servicos Brazil LTDA. At first those companies didn't seem to be important because there are maybe hundreds of OneCoin related shell companies all over the world. However, making some searches with the names of those companies led me to find out OneCoin's Brazilian bank accounts – which I then added to my list of OneCoin's bank accounts in Latin America.
The terms and conditions of the ICO state for example the following clauses:
"The present terms and conditions are not in any way a solicitation for investment and does not in any way pertain to an offering of securities and/or any other type of investment instruments in any jurisdiction."
– Well, yeah, OneCoin was never an investment but a scam.
"Do not participate if you are not an expert in dealings with cryptographic tokens and blockchain based systems."
– So common knowledge isn't enough? You have to be an "expert"?
"The CO performed will not include or in any other way involve issuance of any currency, securities (whether equity securities or otherwise) or other kind of investment certificates and/or instruments. The tokens to be sold during the CO are merely cryptographic tokens existent, that enables usage of and interactions with services enabled, if successfully completed and deployed."
– So this "Coin Offering" isn't about a coin then, because I'm sure coins are considered as currency. Anyway, I'm glad you are admitting that OneCoin isn't a currency.
"Such tokens are not redeemable, associated with financial return or backed by any underlying asset or repurchase commitment and do not necessarily have market price. Furthermore, the OFC do not stand for any sort of investment contract for all intents and purposes. Individuals shall not participate in the CO with a view to investment or speculation or in pursuit of any profit."
– Well, currently the ICO web page informs that "300 OFCS = 1 ONE". So in other words, the above statements consider OneCoins as well. Ergo OneCoin is not a currency and you should not expect any financial return in exchange, let alone profit.
During this "information campaign" there has been some strange modifications to the ICO site. Suddenly almost all logos related to OneCoin were removed, probably just to make any visual connection to the mother scam barely visible. Strangely there still is a "project video" that includes OneCoin logo. The logo also appears as a favicon of the browser tab, and the website still has a link to OneCoin's YouTube channel. Throughout the website word "OneCoin" has been replaced with "ONE Coin".
Some information related to OFC token was removed. The Smart Contract of the ICO was deleted at the very beginning of this campaign. I guess it was a bit too embarrassing to reveal that 120 billion Ethereum based tokens were to be created for this coin offering – exactly the amount that is supposed to be the finite number of OneCoins issued.
On Friday 14 September the T&C and FAQ sections of the website were finally published.
According to the terms and conditions the company responsible of the ICO is an offshore company from Panama. To be exact:
AHS Latam S. A., reg. number 155655623-2-2017, with registered office address: 69 Street, P. H. Alfa Real Building, Suite 2, San Francisco, Panama City, Republic of Panama.
 |
| The resident agent behind the company is a panamanian law firm Robles and Robles. The directors of the company haven't had any known connections to OneCoin – up until now. |
The following names can be found connected to AHS Latam SA: Jorge Luis Herrera, Brendy Escalona, Irina Pilava, Christina Antonis Solomou and Andri Andreou.
Jorge Luis Herrera and Brendy Escalona are lawyers of Robles and Robles law firm.
Irina Pilava doesn't seem to have any public connections to OneCoin that could be found online. A person with an identical name appears in Offshore Leaks Database, but that only figures because OneCoin has a track record of using offshore companies.
Christina Antonis Solomou has no public connections to OneCoin either, but a connection to Irina Pilava can be found. Apparently they have a connection related to a business in Panama.
Andri Andreou has no public relations to OneCoin. He is also one of the directors of AHS AMERICAS S.A., a company which has all the persons above aboard including the law firm Robles and Robles.
Robles and Robles (Robles y Robles) has operated as an agent for thousands of offshore companies so its involvement in OneCoin related company isn't anything peculiar per se. However, I found that Robles and Robles is also the agent behind a Panamian company named Servicios De Educacion Online, S.A. One of the directors of that company is Alexandro Marco Vinicio Ortega Mejia who happens to be also the director of One Life Servicios República Dominicana, Network One Servicos Eireli (Brazil) and One Network Servicos Brazil LTDA. At first those companies didn't seem to be important because there are maybe hundreds of OneCoin related shell companies all over the world. However, making some searches with the names of those companies led me to find out OneCoin's Brazilian bank accounts – which I then added to my list of OneCoin's bank accounts in Latin America.
The terms and conditions of the ICO state for example the following clauses:
"The present terms and conditions are not in any way a solicitation for investment and does not in any way pertain to an offering of securities and/or any other type of investment instruments in any jurisdiction."
– Well, yeah, OneCoin was never an investment but a scam.
"Do not participate if you are not an expert in dealings with cryptographic tokens and blockchain based systems."
– So common knowledge isn't enough? You have to be an "expert"?
"The CO performed will not include or in any other way involve issuance of any currency, securities (whether equity securities or otherwise) or other kind of investment certificates and/or instruments. The tokens to be sold during the CO are merely cryptographic tokens existent, that enables usage of and interactions with services enabled, if successfully completed and deployed."
– So this "Coin Offering" isn't about a coin then, because I'm sure coins are considered as currency. Anyway, I'm glad you are admitting that OneCoin isn't a currency.
"Such tokens are not redeemable, associated with financial return or backed by any underlying asset or repurchase commitment and do not necessarily have market price. Furthermore, the OFC do not stand for any sort of investment contract for all intents and purposes. Individuals shall not participate in the CO with a view to investment or speculation or in pursuit of any profit."
– Well, currently the ICO web page informs that "300 OFCS = 1 ONE". So in other words, the above statements consider OneCoins as well. Ergo OneCoin is not a currency and you should not expect any financial return in exchange, let alone profit.
All in all OneCoin's ICO scam is an embarrassment even by ICO scam standards. The website is still missing information that would be presented on a website of any other ICO (scam) that was taking itself seriously.
This Coin Offering doesn't even follow its roadmap. The first round of the CO was already going on for weeks but there was no way to participate. Currently the website is linked to another one that makes it possible to sign up for the CO.
Of course, in reality OneCoin doesn't actually need KYC procedure at all, because the most effective money laundering repellant OneCoin has is the coin itself. The worthless coin that has no exchanges surely doesn't attract anyone in their right mind.
GLG and Inner Circle
The company being unable to provide answers to the members desperately asking questions, OneCoin scammers decided during the early summer of 2018 to set up exclusive GLG (Global Leaders Group) and Inner Circle groups to spread misinformation among the members and strengthen their belief to the ponzi.
However, there's a contradiction in the sheer existence of GLG and Inner Circle. The company has specifically warned not to trust any information released by any other sources than the company itself. OneLife newsletter August 13 gives an important reminder to the members: "Only trust information that you receive from the official corporate emails or the one that you find published via the official corporate channels." – A rhetoric question: What is the purpose of GLG and Inner Circle then?
I guess the sources not to be trusted should include the head of the GLG and Inner Circle groups, Konstantin Ignatov, because he has been caught lying in public twice already.
During an event in July in Argentina Ignatov announced that according to report by investigators the company was clean from any allegations about violating laws.
Konstantin Ignatov: "The investigators didn't even find one thing to support their allegations." ... "In those 3000 pages (referring to the alleged report) they didn't even find one law that was violated."
– In fact, on the contrary to Ignatov's claims the investigation by Europol and German police is still ongoing. The focus of the investigation is in organised commercial fraud, money laundering, pyramid sales providing financial services without authorization and providing payment services without permission. The investigation is being conducted against eight suspects, mainly employees of one of the companies of the OneCoin group registered in Germany. Ruja Ignatova is among the persons suspected. Source: Bulgarian Capital 25 October.
Another one of Konstantin Ignatov's lies is a petty one in comparison, but it certainly doesn't lack in magnitude. On his Facebook post 30 August, Konstantin was boasting: "Being featured in one of the biggest magazines, with 10 million readers."
That was of course a lie. Numbers magazine has only 3.000 copies printed. In addition OneCoin had most likely paid for the article to be published. The company happened to be sponsoring the magazine at that time.
The questions left unanswered
The company doesn't seem to be interested to answer even to the most important questions the members have:
– There's still no information when OneCoin is supposed to go public.
– Several members have lost their coins that were deposited into so called CoinSafe. The idea was to deposit OneCoins in CoinSafe for a period of 1 or 2 years after which an interest was supposed to be paid according to the deposited sum. There are members who lost their coins about half year ago and still haven't received them.
– Members who bought OFC (OneCoin Future Certificates) during OneCoin's failed IPO process in 2017 still don't know what happens to their Future Certificates.
The Global (Mis)Leaders Group and the Inner Circle provide only disinformation or occasionally admit that there isn't any information available.
400 million dollars of OneCoin related money laundered in the U.S.
Cape Cod Times reported 13 September that a man has been arrested and charged of conspiracy to commit money laundering involving 400 million dollars from OneCoin ponzi-pyramid scam. The news from the U.S. truly underline the fact that OneCoin is an international criminal organisation.
Cape Cod Times:
"A federal grand jury indicted Mark S. Scott on Aug. 21 on a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering after finding evidence that he and others knowingly conducted financial transactions involving about $400 million in proceeds from a pyramid scheme involving a purported cryptocurrency known as OneCoin, with the intention of concealing the source of the proceeds, according to federal court documents."
"The Florida Bar directory lists Scott as member in good standing who is eligible to practice law in Florida. He earned his law degree from Boston University in 1995, has an address in Coral Gables and is the principal of Mark S. Scott, PL, according to the directory."
According to Bulgarian Capital OneCoin already denied having any connections to money laundering by Mark S. Scott. However, I don't think that the FBI and the law enforcement of the U.S. just fabricates claims of OneCoin's connection to the money laundering out of thin air. Such statement must be based on investigated facts.
There is a date for public trading in onecoinico FAQ:
ReplyDeletehttps://onecoinico.io/ofc-faq.pdf
8. What will happen on January 8th 2019?
On January 8th 2019 all participants who purchased OFCs will be able to convert them into ONEs. That means that the Onecoin will become publicly used and traded. Strictly speaking the present Offering differs from the traditional Initial Coin Offerings as it is not initial, but the coin becoming publicly usable as opening the secondary market for people who wish to acquire ONE outside the OneLife Network.
A huge advantage is the fact that ONE has already established global user base of more than 3 million people, strong and recognizable brand and online e-commerce platform where ONE can be utilized.
That sentence refers only to the conversion of OFC's to ONE. Meaning: This is a "public" coin offering. After January 8th any schmuck stupid enough can acquire ONEs via OFC's and start spending coupons on DealShitter.
DeleteI don't know, this sounds like one of the promises we've heard since 2015:
ReplyDelete"That means that the Onecoin will become publicly used and traded"
Keep in mind that the focus of the ICO site is ICO and related OFC’s. All this is ran by a company that was never heard before.
DeleteI wonder, did Europe get any royalties for using their music in public?
ReplyDelete11 days until the January 8th. Still no news on which exchange OneCoin is going to be traded in?
ReplyDeleteIt's a standard ponzi procedure - give as little information as possible to victims to keep them believing.
Deleteso here it is.. Jan 12. I can't imagine anything happened on Jan 8, did it?
ReplyDeleteNope, nothing happened.
DeleteReleasing onecoin on an exchange would be utterly pointless as it would only reveal that it has no value whatsoever. This was already clear when xcoinx.com was operational and it also became awkwardly obvious that no one was interested in buying coins. Thus xcoinx was shut down after running only for a short period.