Criminal investigation started on OneCoin in Finland

The Ostrobothnian police department has started criminal investigation on OneCoin in Finland. The Ostrobothnia region is known from having a lot of OneCoin infected people.

As usual regarding ongoing criminal investigations, police doesn't say much in public, other than vaguely stating that they are investigating financial crimes.

The commissioner of police Antti Perälä states that the investigation was started after several police reports were made during 2017. Finnish Tax Administration was among the ones filing a report. Mr. Perälä also let's us know that one Ostrobothnian OneCoin representative has been arrested in summer.

According to the police the ongoing criminal investigation isn't related to the investigation about OneCoin conducted by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation during 2015 and 2016.

The news about the police investigation were first published by Vasabladet and soon after that by Tivi magazine. The article on Vasabladet is behind paywall.

Tivi magazine sure doesn't shy from calling OneCoin a scam:  

"Onecoin is a pyramid scam built around fictitious crypto currencies, which has been around the world since the government's teeth in the world since 2015. The core characters involved in it have marketed "mining" around the currencies and training packages, for example, at gas stations and various conference venues."

Strong suspicion of crime

The original article on Vasabladet tells that according to the police, the suspicion of crime is so strong that the case will be passed on to the prosecutor.

The newspaper also concludes that since the current investigation isn't related to the one conducted by the Finnish NBI, it means that the police are not currently looking for an investigation into whether Onecoin is legal as a crypto currency, but looking for economic crime in connection with it. - Well, there isn't much anything else but economic crime connected to OneCoin, so this is a healthy approach by the police.

As I have stated before, police are pretty much helpless what comes to stopping international ponzi pyramid scams. Handling these kind of scams falls on each country to sort out by themselves. By the time police interferes usually the damage has been already done and there is only an ugly mess left. From there on follows years of investigations and trials.

Well, eventually all scams come to an end. We have already seen many countries taking a stand against OneCoin and I'm sure more will follow.