10YRS FOR €275M CRYPTO SCAMMER
Lawyer had sent funds through Bank of Ireland
A LAWYER who laundered some €275million through Bank of Ireland accounts as part of a €3.3billion crytocurrency scam has been jailed for 10 years.
Mark Scott was convicted in November 2019 of laundering a total of almost €370million in his role within the Onecoin pyramid scheme run by notorious “Cryto Queen” Ruja Ignatova.
Authorities said he set up bogus private equity investment funds called the Fenero Funds in the British Virgin Islands in 2015 because legitimate banks were unwilling to take Ignatova’s money.
Scott then transferred money from Onecoin victims from the Fenero Funds via Ireland and the Cayman Islands.
US court documents state:
“Between approximately May 2016 and July 2018, the Fenero Fund Accounts funded approximately €282,000,000 in wire transfers to a series of Fenero Fund bank accounts held at the Bank of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland.
“At Ignatova’s direction, Scott subsequently transferred approximately €185,000,000 from the Bank of Ireland to the accounts of one of Ignatova’s other money launderers. Through the use of the Fenero Funds, and the ensuing transfers, Scott successfully cleaned the funds, removing any connection to Ignatova or Onecoin and enabling Ignatova to move the funds where she pleased.”
Bulgarian national Ignatova was the subject of BBC podcast The Missing Cryptoqueen. Last seen in Dubai, she is currently one of the FBI’S Top 10 wanted fugitives, with a $250,000 reward for information leading to her capture.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams said: “Scott, an equity partner at a prominent international law firm, had boasted of earning ‘50 by 50.’ Indeed, Scott accomplished his goal, but by fraud and deception, and will now spend a decade in prison and has been ordered to forfeit all of his illegal proceeds.”
Bank of Ireland employees were requested to testify as part of Scott’s trial, but declined.
US authorities do not believe BOI were aware of the nature of the scam and do not suspect them of any wrongdoing.
BOI said: “We work closely with regulators and law enforcement agencies across all jurisdictions to combat financial crime. This included co-operating with requests for information and assistance from the United States authorities during the investigation which led to the conviction in the money-laundering case in 2019.”