17 ms·

Cryptoqueen: A woman scammed the world, then vanished (2019)

278 points by mgh2 6y ago

jacquesm 6y ago
Pretty good chance that she didn't vanish but was killed, vanishing is a trick that is becoming exceedingly hard.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dmix 6y ago
  Osama Bin Laden had an extremely long run, considering the CIA and NSA was after him at max agenda. Almost embarrassingly long. Ayman al-Zawahiri (the defacto “leader” of Al-queda today) could easily be in some back room hidden in Pakistan right now. He technically is not listed as dead either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri Stranger things have happened in our world. It depends on how much these experts law enforcement people care too. A random IRS guy found the Silk Road guy, not some fancy investigation. The question is anyone in India, or where ever with corrupt police and military, are even looking hard for her. You probably need someone like the Americans, UK, or Russians (see Shamil Basayev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev) IRL to really care at this level. Note: I haven’t listened to the podcast or deeply into her, just my point of view on that subject.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    Bin Laden is one thing. But what’s the use of taking out the de facto leader of an org that will have no problem having a replacement immediately like Al-queda? It makes more sense when you’re doing a full on or strong attack like right after 9/11 or for When ISIS was brought down a ton. — For the Silk Road. That’s true. However the next two silk roads had the people arrested fairly quickly. - Note: I don’t know much or anything about hiding out or disappearing.
    - dunmalg 6y ago
      "living charismatic leader the enemy can't seem to catch" has much greater recruitment value than "dead leader martyred, but we'll keep fighting".
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      The use of it is depleting the leadership chain of command and leave third and fourth stringers at the top at best. It won't actually eliminate them but it will reduce their effectiveness greatly. In Al Qaeda's case the futility comes more from the vacuum in their niche.
  - dstick 5y ago
    An IRS guy found the Silk Road guy? Do you have a source? I remember reading that DPR got caught after some faked murder for hire plot by a (what later turned out) corrupt FBI agent after leaking the Silk Road IP of his Icelandic servers, which were then silently taken over and monitored.
    - j5r5myk 5y ago
      IRS agent Gary Alford found him first and was ignored. It’s detailed in American Kingpin and the following https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-uns...
- yawaworht1978 6y ago
  Nope, it is not that hard, just cannot live the big life. I am not so sure if she was the real head of operation anyway, more like the publicly visible rep(bit like a nominee director).
- brobdingnagians 6y ago
  Especially disappearing from people with money and power. > "I can't discuss that. It starts to get very very very scary, very very very fast." According to Bjercke, Dr Ruja never expected OneCoin to grow so big. People involved at the early stages have told him it was never supposed to be a billion-dollar scam. She tried to close it down, he says, but the dark forces wouldn't let her. Even if you think you are going to get something and profit, one big reason to stay away from scams and fraud is that there are big players in the area that are 1. already established, 2. willing to do much worse things than you to get their way, 3. don't want someone else stepping on their territory. The mafia doesn't let petty thieves steal in their areas. You simply become a pawn to their schemes; then forced to do things you never anticipated having to do. Also reminds me of the Inner Ring by CS Lewis [1]. Stay away from secret societies, fraud, corruption, and crime. There are some very bad people in the world with some very organized problems. It's a much simpler life to just be an honest, unknown, middle class person. [1] https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/ https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
  - Baeocystin 6y ago
    Excellent read, and spot-on, IMO. Thanks for the link.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Very wise. > To a young person, just entering on adult life, the world seems full of “insides,” full of delightful intimacies and confidentialities, and he desires to enter them. > But if he follows that desire he will reach no “inside” that is worth reaching. This curiosity can lead us to some pretty dark corners of the world. Especially on the internet.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  i am hating this fact. now each document is electronic validationed so cannot fake. no way for to leave and become new person. no way for to disappear. damn surveilance state.
  - andix 6y ago
    In some countries you can buy real identities with real passports, including a citizenship. Should be possible to do in Serbia or Bosnia. Maybe even in Bulgaria (EU). During the war in Yugoslavia a lot of records got lost and it is still common practice to reissue birth certificates based on some witness statements.
    - da_big_ghey 6y ago
      true, and for these i am many glad. by end of my life time, though, it is maybe not longer be possibile. biometric identity making it so by some time.
      - raunak 6y ago
        At the end of the day, you can shuck all your responsibilities, buy land in some remote area of the world (Midwestern USA, Canadian Yukon?, South America), and live as a hunter-gatherer - there’s nothing stopping you and after a certain point you’d be effectively isolated and identity-less
        macintux 6y ago
        You'd have to find someplace without property tax at the least, I'd think.
        snypher 5y ago
        Some LLC pays my property taxes, not sure who ;)
  - krisoft 6y ago
- ardit33 6y ago
  Could be. But also the Balkan mafia operates in another level when it comes to identities. There are stories, of eventually someone getting caught, and it is realized that the guy was wanted for 15+ years, by some (usually Western Europe) country, interpol and all, has changed their names 3 times and they live care free in another country. They completely change identities, new names, new passports, new looks, new citizenship. With enough money, it becomes just a routine thing. It is like they run a Tor network ring, but on personal identities. Often, they are found when they get in trouble with their old pals (usually unsettled scores), and not the police.
  - blackearl 6y ago
    They're never truly living carefree. Everywhere you go you'll always be looking over your shoulder, waiting for the day they get you.
    - vbsteven 6y ago
      Katatonia - Omerta is an amazing song about this.
RichardHeart 6y ago
Here's how you solve scams: 1. More law enforcement (Doesn't work in countries that can't even enforce laws against murder so well. Only works after the fact, and the money is nearly never recovered.) 2. Yell as loudly as you can for people to stop getting scammed. (They thing you're wrong, and you have no marketing budget to get your voice heard. It takes 10 units of energy to disprove bullshit and only 1 unit of energy to generate it. It's harder to convince people they've been scammed. This is also known as the curse of the duped. 3. Actively advertise superior investments with longer time horizons so that they don't have the money sitting in their hands to so easily be scammed out of. You can even generate a marketing budget to get eyes away from the scams onto the good things. (You will be yelled at by everyone that doesn't like what you built. Especially if its successful.)
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  In the spirit of following your own advice on solving scams, specifically #2: As the winner of the "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New Scam" for "HEX", and as one of the first people in the world to be successfully sued for online spam, specifically the Viagra spam scheme that you ran from Panama (which you lost, under your previous name "Richard J Schueler"), you could personally solve scams by ceasing and desisting your shilling of HEX, and your recruiting of unsuspecting developers to work on it, and your illegal false claims of providing CDs (certificates of deposit). Richard Hart (aka "Spam King" Richard J Schueler) wins the "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New Scam" for his POS shitcoin Ponzi scheme "HEX": https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/1233242355995750400 https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/1233242355995750400 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&v=tf-lJu5iDh8&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=WorldCryptoNetwork https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&v=tf-lJu5iDh... Peacefire.org beats spammers in court. https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-in-court/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-i... >Free-speech group Peacefire.org wins a legal round in its fight against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's anti-spam law. >The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard Schueler [who now operates under the pseudonum "Richard Hart"] sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or misleading subject line. Confronting Richard Heart of HEX - SPAM KING and Crypto Scammer https://www.cointelligence.com/content/confronting-richard-heart-of-hex-spam-king-and-crypto-scammer/ https://www.cointelligence.com/content/confronting-richard-h... >During ANON Summit 2020, I participated in a “fireside chat” with Richard Heart, founder of HEX. HEX is one of the most sophisticated, if not THE most sophisticated scams I have ever seen. >Why was I so aggressive with Richard? I have a lot of experience fighting with scammers, at events, and in online discussions. I’m familiar with their bullshit techniques. Richard is the sort of “master debater” who will answer a question without actually answering the content of the question. I watched more than 6 hours of his previous talks and learned how to tell when he was trying to avoid a real answer. >If you don't want to sit through hours of interviews yourself, this 4 minute video not only sheds light on Heart's motivation for establishing HEX, but also shows just how abrasive and crude he can be. This video was not created or edited by Cointelligence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MIdlXHedlU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MIdlXHedlU >I want to draw your attention to the quote in the video above: "What am I going to make more money doing? Promoting my token, that I own a whole ton of? Or promoting bitcoin, where I own one-one zillionth of the available supply?" He's clearly in this to make money for himself in any way possible. [...] >When asked why HEX was not categorized as a security, at around the 21 minute mark, Richard offered an explanation that has no legal grounding. On the website, HEX claims that it is "The first high interest blockchain certificate of deposit." However, HEX has no legal authority to issue CDs. Richard is illegally claiming to provide CDs when in fact the instruments are nothing but glorified savings accounts. More quotes: "What's up now, f*ggot? What are you going to do now, you little b*tch? Get the fuck out of here! That's the dumbest piece of shit I've ever seen in my fucking life. [...] Let me give you some more bullshit, ok?" -Richard Heart aka Richard J Schueler Richard Heart - Spam, ICOs, and Death Threats https://imnotdead.co.uk/blog/richard-heart https://imnotdead.co.uk/blog/richard-heart Richard James Schueler - Friggin Spam King https://web.archive.org/web/20190416235350/http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20070926122502156 https://web.archive.org/web/20190416235350/http://www.panama... Why HEX is a Ponzi and not a solid investment (Part 2): Richard Heart https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kwhjxa/why_hex_is_a_ponzi_and_not_a_solid_investment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kwhjxa/why_... >During the interview at ANON, Richard confirmed that he was one of the first people in the world to be sued for online spam, back in 2002. This shows us Richard has experience abusing unregulated markets, as he is doing with crypto these days. Is this an accurate quote of your own words? >When I pressed the matter and asked for a simple “yes” or “no” as to whether he, as the FOUNDER of HEX, knows who benefits from the funds sent to the “Origin Address” he flat-out said “I’m dodging your question.” Dodging the question! He proceeds to repeat “Dodge, dodge.” Richard, your tag-line "Do you want to develop my new cryptocurrency?" is the new "Do you want to develop an app?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVy0JWX5XEY&ab_channel=AdultSwim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVy0JWX5XEY&ab_channel=Adult... "Dodge, dodge." -Richard Heart aka Richard J Schueler
dmix 6y ago
> I tested this explanation on my mother, the family technophobe, and she told me I'd failed to make it clear enough and should start again. So don't worry too much if you don't follow it either It makes you wonder if the BBC author should have tried to explain what crypto was at such detail at all in the first place. The 3 long technical paragraphs disrupt the narrative. Just give some witty one or two lines for the luddites. I doubt they care about public internet databases anyway.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  Not knowing this little bit of what a cryptocurrency is allowed Onecoin to be such a large scam.
Animats 6y ago
If they'd actually implemented a blockchain, they would have been in the clear. No worse than many altcoins.
- woah 6y ago
  If they’d actually implemented a blockchain that did what they said it did, it wouldn’t have been a scam. As it is, this has about as much to do with cryptocurrency as most Nigerian princes have to do with the African nobility
- andix 6y ago
  As soon as they would have turned the system on, people would’ve been able to sell One Coin. And it would’ve got a real price, determined by the market. Not some fake price, set by the company.
  - cookguyruffles 6y ago
    Artificial pricing is still possible in the blockchain world, it's just called staking over there
    - kolinko 6y ago
      What? Staking has nothing to do with a price
daenz 6y ago
>It was a cryptocurrency company, and it had been running for a while - but it didn't have a blockchain. "So we need you to build a blockchain," he went on. I have seen this first hand, on a much smaller scale, at a startup that was riding the blockchain hype with investors. It is really incredible and eye-opening to me what you can accomplish with hype and trust, with absolutely nothing backing it. It makes you realize that it doesn't matter if what you build is cool or innovative, if you can't get people to trust you, it won't succeed.
- 46756e 6y ago
  This is very true for crypto. The amount of people hyped on it without understanding much about it seems crazy high to me. Granted, I recently graduated college, so I may be bias from experience. I just have seen a giant amount of finance frat bros that pour money into Bitcoin cause “banks are like the horse and buggy”.
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    The amount of people that discredit it without understanding is also crazy high. Just because scams exist doesn't mean there aren't real projects and use cases.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      …which are?
    - EvilEy3 6y ago
      Name one. Crypto is one huge scam and pyramid. Period.
      - ccortes 6y ago
        USDC
      - heavyset_go 6y ago
        So far, the only valid use case I've seen is buying or selling things on the grey/black market.
daenz 6y ago
Reading this made me realize that even though Bitcoin is legitimate, Satoshi was pretty wise to conceal their identity before it gained any traction.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Satoshi could still be a small team from a high level Govt agency. Or something else. Might not be one or a few civilians at all.
neom 6y ago
Relatively good mini doc about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys tbh I've spent waaay more time than I'd care to admit diving deep into onecoin over the past few years. It's really really really wild the more you dig. Happy to answer any questions.
- hatmatrix 6y ago
  What's wilder than already covered in these docs and podcasts
  - neom 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you've consumed so that's somewhat difficult to answer, but the part I found the most interesting is all the "dealshaker" stuff that happened after, and I think might still be going on.
narrator 6y ago
You know how you create a cryptocurrency that immediately rivals Bitcoin with no effort? You fork Bitcoin and give it a cute mascot. Dogecoin has a $65 billion marketcap and was made in about two hours as a JOKE. It's totally open source, so there's nothing even illegal about it: https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1393271686384914432/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1393271686384914432/phot... I remember seeing Ethereum starting up and they had a demo where you could make your own cryptocurrency in about a page of code. I thought this shit is never going to work. I WAS SO WRONG. I am sure this cryptoqueen scammer put a ridiculous amount of effort into her scam when these people who actually made absurd amounts of money legally in altcoins did far less work.
- KETpXDDzR 6y ago
  AWS and until recently Azure have Blockchain-as-a-service. The real winner of a gold rush are the people selling pickaxes. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/blockchain-service https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/blockchain-servic... https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain
  - 55555 6y ago
    > The real winner of a gold rush are the people selling pickaxes. No I'm pretty sure the people who hoarded gold (coins) have made more money from blockchain than IBM and AWS.
    - xondono 6y ago
      Nvidia is getting nice profits, and with way less risk than those “investing” in crypto
    - aplummer 6y ago
      You'd think so, but Pickaxe coins like the graph have significantly less gains than dog meme coins. I actually think a sure sign of when a coin won't go mega is when it tries to do something practical, since then its obvious its not that great a practical utility after all (as almost nothing is on a blockchain, except gambling).
vmception 6y ago
I had a European girlfriend at the time, (I’m an American and we were both in America) her sister was exposed to onecoin and was her sisters sole exposure to blockchain ideology. So I asked her to forward the marketing materials to me, and oh my god, it is not possible to discern the problems wrong with it without formal education in both computer science like linked lists and initial exposure to real blockchains. Its doesn’t matter that the first question to ask was “ok where is the block explorer and what consensus model does it use” because nobody exposed to onecoin first would ask that The other thing, which I find much funnier, is that they become not fraudulent just by launching a token on an existing blockchain or deploying their own, and that’s all they had to do but didn’t.
- spuz 6y ago
  Did you convince your girlfriend's sister that it was a scam?
  - vmception 6y ago
    She didnt put money into it. But she was just as excited about blockchain ideology as I was and I would just be the second prophet she was exposed to. It is impossible to discern the difference when religious-like ideology has already occupied that register in your brain.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > that they become not fraudulent just by launching a token on an existing blockchain or deploying their own, and that’s all they had to do but didn’t I submit that that would not be enough to make it not fraudulent. > ok where is the block explorer and what consensus model does it use” because nobody exposed to onecoin first would ask that Doesn't matter. What matters is who's shilling and how effective they are. Like Elon and Bitcoin.
  - vmception 6y ago
    > I submit that that would not be enough to make it not fraudulent. It would still be a rip-off for purchasers, but it would have reduced their legal liability to nothing in the various countries involved. Then they could just squirm around securities laws based on how they marketed it, like everyone else.
Marciplan 6y ago
This podcast had such insane production quality —- but also a sincerely huge lack of journalism. So. Many. Holes. In every thing they “report”.
- 55555 6y ago
  lol kthx Dr. Ruja
  - Marciplan 5y ago
    Haha, no, everything about OneCoin is a scam. I just don’t think the podcast is made from journalism, rather sensationalism.
- raunak 6y ago
  Examples of said holes? Out of curiosity
  - Marciplan 5y ago
    The one that immediately jumps to mind (it’s a while since I listened to it) was where they interview a Dutch MLM-guy and just report his wild stories as facts, without having spent time to have others vet it. It’s a fantastic story, but framed as a journalistic piece which it was not.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    In the grand scheme of things it's a minor detail, but they clearly didn't study the history of digital money: >For a long time, people have tried to create a form of digital money independent of state-backed currencies. But they have always failed because no-one could trust them. They would always need someone in charge who could manipulate the supply, and forgery was too easy. There have been some rather successful attempts at creating digital money. E-gold, Liberty Reserve. The problem was never that someone might manipulate the supply, but censorship resistance. All the successful players in this space ended up getting shut down by governments, cryptocurrency solved this little detail. Clearly they just regurgitated some cryptocurrency pitch without doing much fact checking.
handmodel 6y ago
This was such a good podcast as long as you are ok with a bit of the journalists inserting their research process into things. They went to Uganda where OneCoin was big. They had created a MLM type system there where they got the local priests to give sermons on why it was good. They interviewed people who sold their livestock - even though they didn't own a computer or cell phone so had no idea what it was - for a few hundred dollars to invest. It was also highly marketed in the Arab world where it was marketed specifically towards people who can't invest in companies that have interest on loans. Truly a wild scheme.
- hnzix 5y ago
  The Wig punched himself through a couple of African backwaters and felt like a shark cruising a swimming pool thick with caviar. Not that any one of those tasty tiny eggs amounted to much, but you could just open wide and scoop, and it was easy and filling and it added up. The Wig worked the Africans for a week, incidentally bringing about the collapse of at least three governments and causing untold human suffering. At the end of his week, fat with the cream of several million laughably tiny bank accounts, he retired.
t8e56vd4ih 6y ago
you should check the footage of her on YouTube promoting her coin purely for entertainment. it's utterly ridiculous. she's a personified red flag.
unnouinceput 6y ago
Quote: "...says there are similarities between OneCoin and messianic millennium cults, where people believe they are part of something big that is going to change the world - and no matter what the evidence, once they've signed up, it's very hard for them to admit they are wrong." Yeah, I can say the same about Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and any other major religion in this world. Ever talked with any of these bigots? You want to run for the hills.
nicklecompte 6y ago
Quite a contrast in reactions between the guy who made millions of dollars from the OneCoin scam and bought a big fancy house: > After Dr Ruja's non-appearance in Lisbon, a point came when Igor Alberts, like Jen McAdam, asked to see evidence of the blockchain. He didn't get it, and in December 2017 he quit. > I ask if he felt guilty, for having sold so many people a coin that didn't exist, and for having made so much money in the process. > "I felt responsibility. Not guilt," he replies. "You can never be blamed for believing in something. I had no clue that it could be false. I didn't even know what is a blockchain… What doubt can I have?" Versus the woman who lost a lot of money and convinced her friends/family to also throw away their money: > By contrast, Jen McAdam says she bears a heavy burden of guilt. I ask her how much she earned from selling OneCoin and she says it was €3,000 - €1,800 of which she received in cash, and which she used to buy more OneCoin. The line about “you can never be blamed for believing in something” is of course self-evidently ridiculous and not something Mr. Roberts would pretend to believe in any other context. But “I’m not a bad person, I was a hapless victim like everyone else” has a compelling logic when you’re profiting from a bad system.
- dleslie 6y ago
  It certainly is a bizarre argument. With absolution of guilt for wrongly held beliefs, one could engage in deplorable actions without a tinge of later guilt. We all have a responsibility to question our beliefs, and what harm our actions cause.
  - marnett 6y ago
    Yes we do have that responsibility and obligation. Reading his fallacious defense had me immediately thinking of the essay “The Ethics of Belief”[0]. [0] http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Clifford_ethics.pdf http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Clifford_ethics.pdf
  - FpUser 6y ago
    >"We all have a responsibility to question our beliefs, and what harm our actions cause." Can you point me to any source that spells it in legal terms in relation to general public (not specific cases like food inspector)? Like some written law. Also if existed think of what would such law would to to politicians unless they're specifically exempt.
saagarjha 6y ago
Some discussion from earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21618346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21618346
klaudius 6y ago
I was at one of their scam seminars. There was some sociopath lying for an hour straight and trying to get people to purchase some package for mining Onecoin. It was ridiculous. I was invited by a (former) friend who tried to recruit me and make some money exploiting me.
paulpauper 6y ago
I think there is more that is not being disclosed. It seems hard to believe someone could be so public and just vanish like that after having stolen so much.
botwriter 6y ago
Didn't one of her associates turn up dead in Cambodia this week? https://www.khmer440.com/chat_forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=72063 https://www.khmer440.com/chat_forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=720...
encryptluks2 6y ago
Cryptos have become more like a cult than actual tech. Don't get me wrong, some of them are legitimate but try pointing out their deficiencies in their communities and you'll get attacked from all angles. Most people involved in crypto aren't there for the tech, they only care about money they are making from it.
- PMan74 6y ago
  Most people involved in tech aren't there for the tech, they only care about money they are making from it. (And there's no judgement in that, if you make a living selling fridge freezers it doesn't mean you have to care much about fridge freezers)
  - encryptluks2 6y ago
    That assumes there is no harm in what they are doing. A lot of these cryptos are more like pyramid schemes. Selling freezers is one thing, but if you know the freezer has some major defects and you continue selling them telling everyone how great they are while misleading them about issues then it is more like a scam. Don't get me wrong, some cryptos have the potential to make a lot of people money but often the people making the money are the initial investors not the public.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      > often the people making the money are the initial investors not the public What is wrong with this? Of course people who believed in cryptocurrencies since the beginning have seen greater returns compared to people who started investing now. Every investment disproportionally rewards early adopters. Stocks, even simple savings accounts.
  - deckard1 6y ago
    I mean. Yes and no. Someone doing some CRUD apps at some car insurance firm just to put dinner on the table is completely fine. But then you have Theranos and WeWork and all of that late '90s dot-com crap. Most of those companies had nothing to do with tech, but still raked in lots of VC money hoping to sucker people into purchasing their worthless stock after their inflated IPOs. Of course, it has to be mentioned that the line between fraud and value gets incredibly fuzzy in tech. So much tech is "solutionized" into products that solve problems that are nonsense to begin with. Everyone believes they need cloud-this, or managed K8S, or auto-scaling whatever. The whole industry looks like a fraud at times. Especially enterprise marketing and sales. IBM, Oracle, and others have made a racket on this. And yes they have actual products with actual features, what they are selling are dreams and fairy tales. Look closely at crypto and you'll see the same cottage industry around it today. I mean, what is NFT other than credit default swaps (CDS) for the art market? It's abstracted ownership ("ownership" with a huge asterisk next to it). You even have initial coin offerings (ICO). Every thing from the dot-com and 2008 financial engineering crisis have all been replicated in crypto.
henvic 6y ago
Once the Bitcoin & cryptocurrency proof-of-work fraud dies off, we're going to hear a lot of stories like this. https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/
- RivieraKid 6y ago
  You're the author of this article? I really enjoyed it. One thing I'm not sure I agree is that fiat is an unsustainable shitcoin. Economics and monetary policy is a complex topic, some very smart and knowledgable people have a different view.
  - henvic 5y ago
    Yes, I am. Thank you! Regarding sustainability, I'd say it depends a lot on what you're considering sustainable. Both state-issue and Bitcoin might survive forever... It's just not the best for the common people who owns them, given they could've been using something that has a backing. Only time will tell.
puranjay 6y ago
“Hey hey heyyyy”
ivantopalov 6y ago
I wish people would stop associating this fraud with the cryptocurrency phenomenon. This had nothing to do with crypto. It was an ordinary ponzi scheme, they just added "coin" to the end of their product's name because at that time cryptocurrencies were already very popular.
- II2II 6y ago
  As an outsider, cryptocurrencies appear to be an ideal environment for fraud: most of the talk is around investing in it, its value is highly speculative, and it has relatively little uptake for its stated purpose. Even when a give cryptocurrency is legitimate, something that is difficult to discern through all of the noise, the instability in its value makes it a target for fraud.
zmix 6y ago
LOL, I never heard about OneCoin!
woodpanel 5y ago
Interesting how on a per-capita base, Germany where I live, seems to be the most gullibe society. I think it is not a coincidence that Ruga lived and worked in Germany prior to OC most of her life. I was almost sucked into OC. Some non-tech friend in his mid-thirties approached me about it, he had already invested all his savings (~20k€ and another 10k€ from his mother). He gave me OC's prep-talk and got me interested, so as an overpaid programmer within minutes I've concluded: Why not buy the biggest package or even more? Hooked as I was, every piece of due dilligence I've tried to apply made the whole thing appear as a scam quickly. I've phoned with the BaFin (our financial authority) multiple times it took about a year afterwards for a very timid response against OC (in hindsight their lack of action in this case mirrors their lack of competence in the wirecard scam). For me there are two major culprits: 1. OC leadership, especially Ruga I think what makes OC so sinister is how they specifically targeted groups of people with low technical knowledge and who feel (and are) financially unskilled / underpriviledged. Once they've had to flee one country they've moved to another nation, again looking for underprivliged non-technical people. The OC footsoldier's that I've met all came from Germany's lower classes (I guess most marketers are victims as well). In Britain they've targeted mostly muslims. They went to India, China and so forth. 2. Financial Authorities A scam that targeted small time investors (entry package was 500€; who often don't even know the name of their financial authority or what it does) highlights the importance of taking action for a BaFin: A fair society cannot treat predation of poor people differently that that of rich people. Swifter action whould have prevented a lot of the levels that pyramid eventually built up. 500€s or 5.000€s in damage apparently isn't much for the BaFin to do a lot (AFAIK none of the footsoldies I've met faced any criminal charges). But for the victims it often amounts to 100% of savings or even debt they took on, not even to mention ruined friendships, self-doubt, guilt etc. Ruga and the BaFin broke already broken people. PS: I think Tim Tayshun's article (https://news.bitcoin.com/beware-definitive-onecoin-ponzi/ https://news.bitcoin.com/beware-definitive-onecoin-ponzi/) must have saved a lot of people from this!
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  There are similar scams in many countries. It's not a German culture thing.
TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
Sounds a lot like Bitconnect.
rationalfaith 5y ago
Queen? How about a criminal. Any positive description of this sociopath should be avoided unless its exposing the author's moral compass. Sheesh
fortran77 5y ago
> "That ticked a box... The power of the woman - well done! I felt proud of her." People really want to believe. It reached a different group than Theranos, but the setup was the same. Obviously, if there was no way to take money out/sell your shares, the valuation was completely bogus.
MVorlm 5y ago
In case anyone is curious. ColdFusion did a video on her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys
ejanus 5y ago
But there may be cases where cryptocurrencies have some edge: transparency, speed and reach. Few days ago someone in India opened a contract to raise fund for covid ravaged cities. It is easy to see the amount contributed and by who. If that guy had opened a special bank account, nobody would know the amount collected except what he declares. Crypto kings all over the world emptied their wallets, I don't think such would have been possible under normal transfer systems. With cryptocurrencies the recipients don't pay any charges. But in some countries you may pay up to 50usd for every 1000usd.
- snypher 5y ago
  The recipient surely has to pay a % exchange fee as they can't really buy anything with the crypto directly. If they do buy with crypto, they pay a transaction fee.
pajko 5y ago
Promoters of Crypto Ponzi Scheme OneCoin Murdered in Mexico (2020) https://www.coindesk.com/promoters-of-crypto-ponzi-scheme-onecoin-murdered-in-mexico https://www.coindesk.com/promoters-of-crypto-ponzi-scheme-on...

278 points by mgh2 6y ago

jacquesm 6y ago

Pretty good chance that she didn't vanish but was killed, vanishing is a trick that is becoming exceedingly hard.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dmix 6y ago
Osama Bin Laden had an extremely long run, considering the CIA and NSA was after him at max agenda. Almost embarrassingly long. Ayman al-Zawahiri (the defacto “leader” of Al-queda today) could easily be in some back room hidden in Pakistan right now. He technically is not listed as dead either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri Stranger things have happened in our world. It depends on how much these experts law enforcement people care too. A random IRS guy found the Silk Road guy, not some fancy investigation. The question is anyone in India, or where ever with corrupt police and military, are even looking hard for her. You probably need someone like the Americans, UK, or Russians (see Shamil Basayev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev) IRL to really care at this level. Note: I haven’t listened to the podcast or deeply into her, just my point of view on that subject.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Bin Laden is one thing. But what’s the use of taking out the de facto leader of an org that will have no problem having a replacement immediately like Al-queda? It makes more sense when you’re doing a full on or strong attack like right after 9/11 or for When ISIS was brought down a ton. — For the Silk Road. That’s true. However the next two silk roads had the people arrested fairly quickly. - Note: I don’t know much or anything about hiding out or disappearing.
  - dunmalg 6y ago
    "living charismatic leader the enemy can't seem to catch" has much greater recruitment value than "dead leader martyred, but we'll keep fighting".
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    The use of it is depleting the leadership chain of command and leave third and fourth stringers at the top at best. It won't actually eliminate them but it will reduce their effectiveness greatly. In Al Qaeda's case the futility comes more from the vacuum in their niche.
- dstick 5y ago
  An IRS guy found the Silk Road guy? Do you have a source? I remember reading that DPR got caught after some faked murder for hire plot by a (what later turned out) corrupt FBI agent after leaking the Silk Road IP of his Icelandic servers, which were then silently taken over and monitored.
  - j5r5myk 5y ago
    IRS agent Gary Alford found him first and was ignored. It’s detailed in American Kingpin and the following https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-uns...
yawaworht1978 6y ago
Nope, it is not that hard, just cannot live the big life. I am not so sure if she was the real head of operation anyway, more like the publicly visible rep(bit like a nominee director).
brobdingnagians 6y ago
Especially disappearing from people with money and power. > "I can't discuss that. It starts to get very very very scary, very very very fast." According to Bjercke, Dr Ruja never expected OneCoin to grow so big. People involved at the early stages have told him it was never supposed to be a billion-dollar scam. She tried to close it down, he says, but the dark forces wouldn't let her. Even if you think you are going to get something and profit, one big reason to stay away from scams and fraud is that there are big players in the area that are 1. already established, 2. willing to do much worse things than you to get their way, 3. don't want someone else stepping on their territory. The mafia doesn't let petty thieves steal in their areas. You simply become a pawn to their schemes; then forced to do things you never anticipated having to do. Also reminds me of the Inner Ring by CS Lewis [1]. Stay away from secret societies, fraud, corruption, and crime. There are some very bad people in the world with some very organized problems. It's a much simpler life to just be an honest, unknown, middle class person. [1] https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/ https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  Excellent read, and spot-on, IMO. Thanks for the link.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Very wise. > To a young person, just entering on adult life, the world seems full of “insides,” full of delightful intimacies and confidentialities, and he desires to enter them. > But if he follows that desire he will reach no “inside” that is worth reaching. This curiosity can lead us to some pretty dark corners of the world. Especially on the internet.
da_big_ghey 6y ago
i am hating this fact. now each document is electronic validationed so cannot fake. no way for to leave and become new person. no way for to disappear. damn surveilance state.
- andix 6y ago
  In some countries you can buy real identities with real passports, including a citizenship. Should be possible to do in Serbia or Bosnia. Maybe even in Bulgaria (EU). During the war in Yugoslavia a lot of records got lost and it is still common practice to reissue birth certificates based on some witness statements.
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    true, and for these i am many glad. by end of my life time, though, it is maybe not longer be possibile. biometric identity making it so by some time.
    - raunak 6y ago
      At the end of the day, you can shuck all your responsibilities, buy land in some remote area of the world (Midwestern USA, Canadian Yukon?, South America), and live as a hunter-gatherer - there’s nothing stopping you and after a certain point you’d be effectively isolated and identity-less
      - macintux 6y ago
        You'd have to find someplace without property tax at the least, I'd think.
        snypher 5y ago
        Some LLC pays my property taxes, not sure who ;)
- krisoft 6y ago
ardit33 6y ago
Could be. But also the Balkan mafia operates in another level when it comes to identities. There are stories, of eventually someone getting caught, and it is realized that the guy was wanted for 15+ years, by some (usually Western Europe) country, interpol and all, has changed their names 3 times and they live care free in another country. They completely change identities, new names, new passports, new looks, new citizenship. With enough money, it becomes just a routine thing. It is like they run a Tor network ring, but on personal identities. Often, they are found when they get in trouble with their old pals (usually unsettled scores), and not the police.
- blackearl 6y ago
  They're never truly living carefree. Everywhere you go you'll always be looking over your shoulder, waiting for the day they get you.
  - vbsteven 6y ago
    Katatonia - Omerta is an amazing song about this.

RichardHeart 6y ago

Here's how you solve scams: 1. More law enforcement (Doesn't work in countries that can't even enforce laws against murder so well. Only works after the fact, and the money is nearly never recovered.) 2. Yell as loudly as you can for people to stop getting scammed. (They thing you're wrong, and you have no marketing budget to get your voice heard. It takes 10 units of energy to disprove bullshit and only 1 unit of energy to generate it. It's harder to convince people they've been scammed. This is also known as the curse of the duped. 3. Actively advertise superior investments with longer time horizons so that they don't have the money sitting in their hands to so easily be scammed out of. You can even generate a marketing budget to get eyes away from the scams onto the good things. (You will be yelled at by everyone that doesn't like what you built. Especially if its successful.)

DonHopkins 5y ago
In the spirit of following your own advice on solving scams, specifically #2: As the winner of the "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New Scam" for "HEX", and as one of the first people in the world to be successfully sued for online spam, specifically the Viagra spam scheme that you ran from Panama (which you lost, under your previous name "Richard J Schueler"), you could personally solve scams by ceasing and desisting your shilling of HEX, and your recruiting of unsuspecting developers to work on it, and your illegal false claims of providing CDs (certificates of deposit). Richard Hart (aka "Spam King" Richard J Schueler) wins the "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New Scam" for his POS shitcoin Ponzi scheme "HEX": https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/1233242355995750400 https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/1233242355995750400 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&v=tf-lJu5iDh8&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=WorldCryptoNetwork https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&v=tf-lJu5iDh... Peacefire.org beats spammers in court. https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-in-court/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-i... >Free-speech group Peacefire.org wins a legal round in its fight against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's anti-spam law. >The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard Schueler [who now operates under the pseudonum "Richard Hart"] sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or misleading subject line. Confronting Richard Heart of HEX - SPAM KING and Crypto Scammer https://www.cointelligence.com/content/confronting-richard-heart-of-hex-spam-king-and-crypto-scammer/ https://www.cointelligence.com/content/confronting-richard-h... >During ANON Summit 2020, I participated in a “fireside chat” with Richard Heart, founder of HEX. HEX is one of the most sophisticated, if not THE most sophisticated scams I have ever seen. >Why was I so aggressive with Richard? I have a lot of experience fighting with scammers, at events, and in online discussions. I’m familiar with their bullshit techniques. Richard is the sort of “master debater” who will answer a question without actually answering the content of the question. I watched more than 6 hours of his previous talks and learned how to tell when he was trying to avoid a real answer. >If you don't want to sit through hours of interviews yourself, this 4 minute video not only sheds light on Heart's motivation for establishing HEX, but also shows just how abrasive and crude he can be. This video was not created or edited by Cointelligence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MIdlXHedlU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MIdlXHedlU >I want to draw your attention to the quote in the video above: "What am I going to make more money doing? Promoting my token, that I own a whole ton of? Or promoting bitcoin, where I own one-one zillionth of the available supply?" He's clearly in this to make money for himself in any way possible. [...] >When asked why HEX was not categorized as a security, at around the 21 minute mark, Richard offered an explanation that has no legal grounding. On the website, HEX claims that it is "The first high interest blockchain certificate of deposit." However, HEX has no legal authority to issue CDs. Richard is illegally claiming to provide CDs when in fact the instruments are nothing but glorified savings accounts. More quotes: "What's up now, f*ggot? What are you going to do now, you little b*tch? Get the fuck out of here! That's the dumbest piece of shit I've ever seen in my fucking life. [...] Let me give you some more bullshit, ok?" -Richard Heart aka Richard J Schueler Richard Heart - Spam, ICOs, and Death Threats https://imnotdead.co.uk/blog/richard-heart https://imnotdead.co.uk/blog/richard-heart Richard James Schueler - Friggin Spam King https://web.archive.org/web/20190416235350/http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20070926122502156 https://web.archive.org/web/20190416235350/http://www.panama... Why HEX is a Ponzi and not a solid investment (Part 2): Richard Heart https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kwhjxa/why_hex_is_a_ponzi_and_not_a_solid_investment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kwhjxa/why_... >During the interview at ANON, Richard confirmed that he was one of the first people in the world to be sued for online spam, back in 2002. This shows us Richard has experience abusing unregulated markets, as he is doing with crypto these days. Is this an accurate quote of your own words? >When I pressed the matter and asked for a simple “yes” or “no” as to whether he, as the FOUNDER of HEX, knows who benefits from the funds sent to the “Origin Address” he flat-out said “I’m dodging your question.” Dodging the question! He proceeds to repeat “Dodge, dodge.” Richard, your tag-line "Do you want to develop my new cryptocurrency?" is the new "Do you want to develop an app?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVy0JWX5XEY&ab_channel=AdultSwim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVy0JWX5XEY&ab_channel=Adult... "Dodge, dodge." -Richard Heart aka Richard J Schueler

dmix 6y ago

> I tested this explanation on my mother, the family technophobe, and she told me I'd failed to make it clear enough and should start again. So don't worry too much if you don't follow it either It makes you wonder if the BBC author should have tried to explain what crypto was at such detail at all in the first place. The 3 long technical paragraphs disrupt the narrative. Just give some witty one or two lines for the luddites. I doubt they care about public internet databases anyway.

rbanffy 6y ago
Not knowing this little bit of what a cryptocurrency is allowed Onecoin to be such a large scam.

Animats 6y ago

If they'd actually implemented a blockchain, they would have been in the clear. No worse than many altcoins.

woah 6y ago
If they’d actually implemented a blockchain that did what they said it did, it wouldn’t have been a scam. As it is, this has about as much to do with cryptocurrency as most Nigerian princes have to do with the African nobility
andix 6y ago
As soon as they would have turned the system on, people would’ve been able to sell One Coin. And it would’ve got a real price, determined by the market. Not some fake price, set by the company.
- cookguyruffles 6y ago
  Artificial pricing is still possible in the blockchain world, it's just called staking over there
  - kolinko 6y ago
    What? Staking has nothing to do with a price

daenz 6y ago

>It was a cryptocurrency company, and it had been running for a while - but it didn't have a blockchain. "So we need you to build a blockchain," he went on. I have seen this first hand, on a much smaller scale, at a startup that was riding the blockchain hype with investors. It is really incredible and eye-opening to me what you can accomplish with hype and trust, with absolutely nothing backing it. It makes you realize that it doesn't matter if what you build is cool or innovative, if you can't get people to trust you, it won't succeed.

46756e 6y ago
This is very true for crypto. The amount of people hyped on it without understanding much about it seems crazy high to me. Granted, I recently graduated college, so I may be bias from experience. I just have seen a giant amount of finance frat bros that pour money into Bitcoin cause “banks are like the horse and buggy”.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  The amount of people that discredit it without understanding is also crazy high. Just because scams exist doesn't mean there aren't real projects and use cases.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    …which are?
  - EvilEy3 6y ago
    Name one. Crypto is one huge scam and pyramid. Period.
    - ccortes 6y ago
      USDC
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      So far, the only valid use case I've seen is buying or selling things on the grey/black market.

daenz 6y ago

Reading this made me realize that even though Bitcoin is legitimate, Satoshi was pretty wise to conceal their identity before it gained any traction.

skinnymuch 6y ago
Satoshi could still be a small team from a high level Govt agency. Or something else. Might not be one or a few civilians at all.

neom 6y ago

Relatively good mini doc about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys tbh I've spent waaay more time than I'd care to admit diving deep into onecoin over the past few years. It's really really really wild the more you dig. Happy to answer any questions.

hatmatrix 6y ago
What's wilder than already covered in these docs and podcasts
- neom 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you've consumed so that's somewhat difficult to answer, but the part I found the most interesting is all the "dealshaker" stuff that happened after, and I think might still be going on.

narrator 6y ago

You know how you create a cryptocurrency that immediately rivals Bitcoin with no effort? You fork Bitcoin and give it a cute mascot. Dogecoin has a $65 billion marketcap and was made in about two hours as a JOKE. It's totally open source, so there's nothing even illegal about it: https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1393271686384914432/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1393271686384914432/phot... I remember seeing Ethereum starting up and they had a demo where you could make your own cryptocurrency in about a page of code. I thought this shit is never going to work. I WAS SO WRONG. I am sure this cryptoqueen scammer put a ridiculous amount of effort into her scam when these people who actually made absurd amounts of money legally in altcoins did far less work.

KETpXDDzR 6y ago
AWS and until recently Azure have Blockchain-as-a-service. The real winner of a gold rush are the people selling pickaxes. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/blockchain-service https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/blockchain-servic... https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain
- 55555 6y ago
  > The real winner of a gold rush are the people selling pickaxes. No I'm pretty sure the people who hoarded gold (coins) have made more money from blockchain than IBM and AWS.
  - xondono 6y ago
    Nvidia is getting nice profits, and with way less risk than those “investing” in crypto
  - aplummer 6y ago
    You'd think so, but Pickaxe coins like the graph have significantly less gains than dog meme coins. I actually think a sure sign of when a coin won't go mega is when it tries to do something practical, since then its obvious its not that great a practical utility after all (as almost nothing is on a blockchain, except gambling).

vmception 6y ago

I had a European girlfriend at the time, (I’m an American and we were both in America) her sister was exposed to onecoin and was her sisters sole exposure to blockchain ideology. So I asked her to forward the marketing materials to me, and oh my god, it is not possible to discern the problems wrong with it without formal education in both computer science like linked lists and initial exposure to real blockchains. Its doesn’t matter that the first question to ask was “ok where is the block explorer and what consensus model does it use” because nobody exposed to onecoin first would ask that The other thing, which I find much funnier, is that they become not fraudulent just by launching a token on an existing blockchain or deploying their own, and that’s all they had to do but didn’t.

spuz 6y ago
Did you convince your girlfriend's sister that it was a scam?
- vmception 6y ago
  She didnt put money into it. But she was just as excited about blockchain ideology as I was and I would just be the second prophet she was exposed to. It is impossible to discern the difference when religious-like ideology has already occupied that register in your brain.
pjc50 6y ago
> that they become not fraudulent just by launching a token on an existing blockchain or deploying their own, and that’s all they had to do but didn’t I submit that that would not be enough to make it not fraudulent. > ok where is the block explorer and what consensus model does it use” because nobody exposed to onecoin first would ask that Doesn't matter. What matters is who's shilling and how effective they are. Like Elon and Bitcoin.
- vmception 6y ago
  > I submit that that would not be enough to make it not fraudulent. It would still be a rip-off for purchasers, but it would have reduced their legal liability to nothing in the various countries involved. Then they could just squirm around securities laws based on how they marketed it, like everyone else.

Marciplan 6y ago

This podcast had such insane production quality —- but also a sincerely huge lack of journalism. So. Many. Holes. In every thing they “report”.

55555 6y ago
lol kthx Dr. Ruja
- Marciplan 5y ago
  Haha, no, everything about OneCoin is a scam. I just don’t think the podcast is made from journalism, rather sensationalism.
raunak 6y ago
Examples of said holes? Out of curiosity
- Marciplan 5y ago
  The one that immediately jumps to mind (it’s a while since I listened to it) was where they interview a Dutch MLM-guy and just report his wild stories as facts, without having spent time to have others vet it. It’s a fantastic story, but framed as a journalistic piece which it was not.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  In the grand scheme of things it's a minor detail, but they clearly didn't study the history of digital money: >For a long time, people have tried to create a form of digital money independent of state-backed currencies. But they have always failed because no-one could trust them. They would always need someone in charge who could manipulate the supply, and forgery was too easy. There have been some rather successful attempts at creating digital money. E-gold, Liberty Reserve. The problem was never that someone might manipulate the supply, but censorship resistance. All the successful players in this space ended up getting shut down by governments, cryptocurrency solved this little detail. Clearly they just regurgitated some cryptocurrency pitch without doing much fact checking.

handmodel 6y ago

This was such a good podcast as long as you are ok with a bit of the journalists inserting their research process into things. They went to Uganda where OneCoin was big. They had created a MLM type system there where they got the local priests to give sermons on why it was good. They interviewed people who sold their livestock - even though they didn't own a computer or cell phone so had no idea what it was - for a few hundred dollars to invest. It was also highly marketed in the Arab world where it was marketed specifically towards people who can't invest in companies that have interest on loans. Truly a wild scheme.

hnzix 5y ago
The Wig punched himself through a couple of African backwaters and felt like a shark cruising a swimming pool thick with caviar. Not that any one of those tasty tiny eggs amounted to much, but you could just open wide and scoop, and it was easy and filling and it added up. The Wig worked the Africans for a week, incidentally bringing about the collapse of at least three governments and causing untold human suffering. At the end of his week, fat with the cream of several million laughably tiny bank accounts, he retired.

t8e56vd4ih 6y ago

you should check the footage of her on YouTube promoting her coin purely for entertainment. it's utterly ridiculous. she's a personified red flag.

unnouinceput 6y ago

Quote: "...says there are similarities between OneCoin and messianic millennium cults, where people believe they are part of something big that is going to change the world - and no matter what the evidence, once they've signed up, it's very hard for them to admit they are wrong." Yeah, I can say the same about Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and any other major religion in this world. Ever talked with any of these bigots? You want to run for the hills.

nicklecompte 6y ago

Quite a contrast in reactions between the guy who made millions of dollars from the OneCoin scam and bought a big fancy house: > After Dr Ruja's non-appearance in Lisbon, a point came when Igor Alberts, like Jen McAdam, asked to see evidence of the blockchain. He didn't get it, and in December 2017 he quit. > I ask if he felt guilty, for having sold so many people a coin that didn't exist, and for having made so much money in the process. > "I felt responsibility. Not guilt," he replies. "You can never be blamed for believing in something. I had no clue that it could be false. I didn't even know what is a blockchain… What doubt can I have?" Versus the woman who lost a lot of money and convinced her friends/family to also throw away their money: > By contrast, Jen McAdam says she bears a heavy burden of guilt. I ask her how much she earned from selling OneCoin and she says it was €3,000 - €1,800 of which she received in cash, and which she used to buy more OneCoin. The line about “you can never be blamed for believing in something” is of course self-evidently ridiculous and not something Mr. Roberts would pretend to believe in any other context. But “I’m not a bad person, I was a hapless victim like everyone else” has a compelling logic when you’re profiting from a bad system.

dleslie 6y ago
It certainly is a bizarre argument. With absolution of guilt for wrongly held beliefs, one could engage in deplorable actions without a tinge of later guilt. We all have a responsibility to question our beliefs, and what harm our actions cause.
- marnett 6y ago
  Yes we do have that responsibility and obligation. Reading his fallacious defense had me immediately thinking of the essay “The Ethics of Belief”[0]. [0] http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Clifford_ethics.pdf http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Clifford_ethics.pdf
- FpUser 6y ago
  >"We all have a responsibility to question our beliefs, and what harm our actions cause." Can you point me to any source that spells it in legal terms in relation to general public (not specific cases like food inspector)? Like some written law. Also if existed think of what would such law would to to politicians unless they're specifically exempt.

saagarjha 6y ago

Some discussion from earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21618346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21618346

klaudius 6y ago

I was at one of their scam seminars. There was some sociopath lying for an hour straight and trying to get people to purchase some package for mining Onecoin. It was ridiculous. I was invited by a (former) friend who tried to recruit me and make some money exploiting me.

paulpauper 6y ago

I think there is more that is not being disclosed. It seems hard to believe someone could be so public and just vanish like that after having stolen so much.

botwriter 6y ago

Didn't one of her associates turn up dead in Cambodia this week? https://www.khmer440.com/chat_forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=72063 https://www.khmer440.com/chat_forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=720...

encryptluks2 6y ago

Cryptos have become more like a cult than actual tech. Don't get me wrong, some of them are legitimate but try pointing out their deficiencies in their communities and you'll get attacked from all angles. Most people involved in crypto aren't there for the tech, they only care about money they are making from it.

PMan74 6y ago
Most people involved in tech aren't there for the tech, they only care about money they are making from it. (And there's no judgement in that, if you make a living selling fridge freezers it doesn't mean you have to care much about fridge freezers)
- encryptluks2 6y ago
  That assumes there is no harm in what they are doing. A lot of these cryptos are more like pyramid schemes. Selling freezers is one thing, but if you know the freezer has some major defects and you continue selling them telling everyone how great they are while misleading them about issues then it is more like a scam. Don't get me wrong, some cryptos have the potential to make a lot of people money but often the people making the money are the initial investors not the public.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > often the people making the money are the initial investors not the public What is wrong with this? Of course people who believed in cryptocurrencies since the beginning have seen greater returns compared to people who started investing now. Every investment disproportionally rewards early adopters. Stocks, even simple savings accounts.
- deckard1 6y ago
  I mean. Yes and no. Someone doing some CRUD apps at some car insurance firm just to put dinner on the table is completely fine. But then you have Theranos and WeWork and all of that late '90s dot-com crap. Most of those companies had nothing to do with tech, but still raked in lots of VC money hoping to sucker people into purchasing their worthless stock after their inflated IPOs. Of course, it has to be mentioned that the line between fraud and value gets incredibly fuzzy in tech. So much tech is "solutionized" into products that solve problems that are nonsense to begin with. Everyone believes they need cloud-this, or managed K8S, or auto-scaling whatever. The whole industry looks like a fraud at times. Especially enterprise marketing and sales. IBM, Oracle, and others have made a racket on this. And yes they have actual products with actual features, what they are selling are dreams and fairy tales. Look closely at crypto and you'll see the same cottage industry around it today. I mean, what is NFT other than credit default swaps (CDS) for the art market? It's abstracted ownership ("ownership" with a huge asterisk next to it). You even have initial coin offerings (ICO). Every thing from the dot-com and 2008 financial engineering crisis have all been replicated in crypto.

henvic 6y ago

Once the Bitcoin & cryptocurrency proof-of-work fraud dies off, we're going to hear a lot of stories like this. https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/ https://henvic.dev/posts/bitcoin/

RivieraKid 6y ago
You're the author of this article? I really enjoyed it. One thing I'm not sure I agree is that fiat is an unsustainable shitcoin. Economics and monetary policy is a complex topic, some very smart and knowledgable people have a different view.
- henvic 5y ago
  Yes, I am. Thank you! Regarding sustainability, I'd say it depends a lot on what you're considering sustainable. Both state-issue and Bitcoin might survive forever... It's just not the best for the common people who owns them, given they could've been using something that has a backing. Only time will tell.

puranjay 6y ago

“Hey hey heyyyy”

ivantopalov 6y ago

I wish people would stop associating this fraud with the cryptocurrency phenomenon. This had nothing to do with crypto. It was an ordinary ponzi scheme, they just added "coin" to the end of their product's name because at that time cryptocurrencies were already very popular.

II2II 6y ago
As an outsider, cryptocurrencies appear to be an ideal environment for fraud: most of the talk is around investing in it, its value is highly speculative, and it has relatively little uptake for its stated purpose. Even when a give cryptocurrency is legitimate, something that is difficult to discern through all of the noise, the instability in its value makes it a target for fraud.

zmix 6y ago

LOL, I never heard about OneCoin!

woodpanel 5y ago

Interesting how on a per-capita base, Germany where I live, seems to be the most gullibe society. I think it is not a coincidence that Ruga lived and worked in Germany prior to OC most of her life. I was almost sucked into OC. Some non-tech friend in his mid-thirties approached me about it, he had already invested all his savings (~20k€ and another 10k€ from his mother). He gave me OC's prep-talk and got me interested, so as an overpaid programmer within minutes I've concluded: Why not buy the biggest package or even more? Hooked as I was, every piece of due dilligence I've tried to apply made the whole thing appear as a scam quickly. I've phoned with the BaFin (our financial authority) multiple times it took about a year afterwards for a very timid response against OC (in hindsight their lack of action in this case mirrors their lack of competence in the wirecard scam). For me there are two major culprits: 1. OC leadership, especially Ruga I think what makes OC so sinister is how they specifically targeted groups of people with low technical knowledge and who feel (and are) financially unskilled / underpriviledged. Once they've had to flee one country they've moved to another nation, again looking for underprivliged non-technical people. The OC footsoldier's that I've met all came from Germany's lower classes (I guess most marketers are victims as well). In Britain they've targeted mostly muslims. They went to India, China and so forth. 2. Financial Authorities A scam that targeted small time investors (entry package was 500€; who often don't even know the name of their financial authority or what it does) highlights the importance of taking action for a BaFin: A fair society cannot treat predation of poor people differently that that of rich people. Swifter action whould have prevented a lot of the levels that pyramid eventually built up. 500€s or 5.000€s in damage apparently isn't much for the BaFin to do a lot (AFAIK none of the footsoldies I've met faced any criminal charges). But for the victims it often amounts to 100% of savings or even debt they took on, not even to mention ruined friendships, self-doubt, guilt etc. Ruga and the BaFin broke already broken people. PS: I think Tim Tayshun's article (https://news.bitcoin.com/beware-definitive-onecoin-ponzi/ https://news.bitcoin.com/beware-definitive-onecoin-ponzi/) must have saved a lot of people from this!

alisonkisk 5y ago
There are similar scams in many countries. It's not a German culture thing.

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago

Sounds a lot like Bitconnect.

rationalfaith 5y ago

Queen? How about a criminal. Any positive description of this sociopath should be avoided unless its exposing the author's moral compass. Sheesh

fortran77 5y ago

> "That ticked a box... The power of the woman - well done! I felt proud of her." People really want to believe. It reached a different group than Theranos, but the setup was the same. Obviously, if there was no way to take money out/sell your shares, the valuation was completely bogus.

MVorlm 5y ago

In case anyone is curious. ColdFusion did a video on her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcgvEJ3Ys

ejanus 5y ago

But there may be cases where cryptocurrencies have some edge: transparency, speed and reach. Few days ago someone in India opened a contract to raise fund for covid ravaged cities. It is easy to see the amount contributed and by who. If that guy had opened a special bank account, nobody would know the amount collected except what he declares. Crypto kings all over the world emptied their wallets, I don't think such would have been possible under normal transfer systems. With cryptocurrencies the recipients don't pay any charges. But in some countries you may pay up to 50usd for every 1000usd.

snypher 5y ago
The recipient surely has to pay a % exchange fee as they can't really buy anything with the crypto directly. If they do buy with crypto, they pay a transaction fee.

pajko 5y ago

Promoters of Crypto Ponzi Scheme OneCoin Murdered in Mexico (2020) https://www.coindesk.com/promoters-of-crypto-ponzi-scheme-onecoin-murdered-in-mexico https://www.coindesk.com/promoters-of-crypto-ponzi-scheme-on...