U-TURN ON WARNING LETS SCAM CARRY ON
One of the biggest frauds I’ve exposed is the £3billion cryptocurrency sham OneCoin.
I wrote about it after attending a mass recruitment session in London in early 2016, where the audience was told by one speaker: “I am here to make you filthy rich.”
Victims worldwide were sucked in, putting their savings into the scheme that later collapsed. The founder, 39-year-old Bulgarian Ruja Ignatova, disappeared – she’s still on the run from the FBI.
One mystery is why the City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority issued a warning about OneCoin in late 2016 only to later withdraw it.
Now journalist Jamie Bartlett – in a BBC podcast, The Missing Cryptoqueen – alleges that the FCA backtracked after being leant on by London law firm Carter-Ruck, which acted for OneCoin.
The watchdog denies bowing to pressure, saying the warning was removed because “The FCA does not regulate crypto assets and therefore it could not take this matter further”.
I’m not sure this stacks up because OneCoin never had any crypto assets – it was a Ponzi scheme built on lies.
I contacted Carter-Ruck, which not only seems proud to have acted for OneCoin, it reckons that its action helped get that FCA warning taken down.
“On behalf of our client we made legal representations to the
FCA about the publication of its consumer warning, following which the FCA informed us that the warning would be removed,” a spokesman for the law firm told me.
A second outfit is also said to have helped OneCoin, London reputation management firm Chelgate.
According to the BBC podcast someone called Simon Harris, billed as a former Chelgate employee, who said he worked on the OneCoin account.
This, said Mr Harris, was arranged through an intermediary named as
Ignatova is wanted by the FBI
£40,000. “He was the one that employed Chelgate, so if you like there was one step removed,” Mr Harris stated.
“You could ask Chelgate, ‘Did you ever have OneCoin as a client?’ They can probably honestly say ‘No’, although they did work for OneCoin.”
Chelgate executive chairman Terence Fane-Saunders told me that work with clients is not discussed due to professional confidentiality.
“However, I can perhaps draw your attention to the remark by our former client Mr Frank Schneider included in the podcast, indicating that Chelgate had not applied pressure on the FCA or influenced its decision to withdraw the notice,” he said.
He added that he did not believe that Mr Schneider was employed by OneCoin.
Whatever the truth, the removal of that official warning delighted the scammers, giving them more time to