A OneCoin co-founder has been sentenced to 20 years in a US prison.
Sebastian Karl Greenwood was handed two decades behind bars by a federal judge in a court in Manhattan, after pleading guilty to colluding with others - including the missing Dr Ruja Ignatova, who the FBI dubbed “Cryptoqueen” when they put her on their 10 Most Wanted list - and defrauding more than $4 billion from investors in the scheme.
The 46-year-old convict - who holds both UK and Swedish citizenship - was arrested while in Thailand in 2018 and admitted to his crimes, such as wire fraud and money laundering, in December.
This comes after OneCoin - which was founded in Bulgaria in 2014 - was labelled as an international pyramid scheme by federal law enforcement.
Sebastian is believed to have worked with Ruja - who has not been seen since 2017 - and "used the notoriety of Bitcoin to convince investors that OneCoin was the next 'can't miss' investment opportunity".
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said: "In reality, unlike legitimate cryptocurrencies, OneCoin had no actual value and was conceived of by Greenwood and Ignatova as a fraud from day one.”
They added the pair "operated one of the largest fraud schemes ever perpetrated".
Damian Williams, the US Attorney, added: "We hope this lengthy sentence resonates in the financial sector and deters anyone who may be tempted to lie to investors and exploit the cryptocurrency ecosystem through fraud.”
Ruja’s disappearance has been explored in the BBC podcast ‘The Missing Cryptoqueen’ and, according to the FBI, “is believed to travel with armed guards" and "may have had plastic surgery or otherwise altered her appearance".
