A man with dual citizenship of Sweden and Britain has pleaded guilty in the United States to fraud and money laundering after selling counterfeit cryptocurrency alongside one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, a woman known as the “crypto queen,” Reuters reported.

Carl Greenwood, 45, was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the United States in 2018 for his involvement in the launch and sale of OneCoin, an alleged cryptocurrency that Manhattan federal prosecutors say was nothing more than a pyramid scheme that defrauded investors out of $4 billion dollars

Greenwood has been in custody since his arrest.

He pleaded guilty days after New York state prosecutors charged Sam Benkman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, with allegedly stealing billions of dollars from customer deposits.

“This guilty plea by the OneCoin co-founder caps a week in which prosecutors in New York sent a clear message that we are prosecuting anyone who fraudulently exploits the cryptocurrency ecosystem,” said Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney. press release Head of State.

U.S. prosecutors say Greenwood founded OneCoin in Sofia in 2014 with Ruya Ignatova, a German citizen of Bulgarian descent who was nicknamed the “crypto queen.”

“Cryptoregina” Rui Ignatov, wanted in the USA and Europe

In June, the FBI put her on its 10 most wanted list, and the prosecutor’s office in New York said it still had no information on her whereabouts.

A month earlier, following a request from the German police, Europol included Rudja on the most wanted list.

Europol’s website said at the time that it was “suspected of persuading investors around the world to invest in this essentially worthless ‘currency’ by saying it was offering a €5,000 reward for any information, which will lead to the arrest of 41 people. – a year old woman.

According to a 2019 indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, OneCoin, which Ignatova claimed at one time had more than 3 million users worldwide, actually operated as a multi-level marketing network that paid commissions to members for recruiting others.

The founder of the OneCoin scheme disappeared 5 years ago

The FBI and federal prosecutors have charged the Bulgarian creators of an international payment system based on the OneCoin cryptocurrency, which was also used in Romania at the time, with a pyramid scheme fraud.

OneCoin turned out to be a scam – the OneCoin blockchain was not behind it, and the founders of the company dictated the value of the cryptocurrency, not the market, as they claimed.

Ignatova ran the OneCoin organization until it disappeared without a trace in October 2017.

His brother Kostyantyn Ignatov headed the organization after its liquidation. He was arrested in the US, where he pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering last November.