In the processing of the billion dollar Onecoin investment fraud, a first criminal case in Germany is within reach. The public prosecutor’s office in Bielefeld has filed an indictment against three suspects, the Münster district court announced. Whether the indictment will be admitted is still open.

Onecoin was a fictitious cryptocurrency of a businesswoman from Bulgaria who grew up in southern Germany. From 2015 on, she promised rosy prospects for the competing product to Bitcoin and collected a lot of money, according to US investigators, it should total 4 billion US dollars (3, 35 billion euros). When appearing in front of large crowds, she was hailed as the new “crypto queen”. 2017 she went into hiding.

The investigations of the Bielefeld public prosecutor’s office, which began in the same year, concerned the fraud supposed to have played in Germany – it’s about Onecoin business partners in this country.

“Vulnerable legal situation” Two people are accused To have operated payment services without permission and to have transferred more than 300 million euros from investors to the Cayman Islands, among others. The prosecutors also accuse another person of willful money laundering and assistance with foreign transfers. The accused is said to have accepted that the alleged crypto-money was at the center of commercial fraud. The legal situation is prone to errors and complex, this should not be at the expense of his client, said lawyer Michael Heuchemer. His client only took part in Onecoin “after the concept had already been established for more than a year and a half; he believed in the seriousness of the undertaking, just as significant parts of the financial world did back then.” He stopped his contacts very quickly.

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) had 2017 accounts blocked in Germany for Onecoin Transactions had been used. According to Bafin, a financial institution active for Onecoin had around and December 2016 million euros assumed. When the accounts were blocked, there were still 29 million euros on it.

(anw)