In a landmark verdict, Mark Scott, formerly a high-ranking attorney at Locke Lord LLP, received a 10-year prison sentence on January 25 for laundering $400 million from the infamous OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
The conviction in the Southern District of New York followed Scott’s 2019 conviction on multiple counts of bank fraud and money laundering. Inner City Press first reported the conviction from the courtroom.
The OneCoin lawyer
Launched in 2014 and operated from Sofia, Bulgaria, OneCoin was initially marketed as a breakthrough cryptocurrency. However, it quickly turned out to be a fraudulent multi-level-marketing (MLM) scheme, defrauding more than $4 billion from at least 3.5 million victims worldwide between 2014 and 2016.
It was falsely represented that the value of OneCoin was determined by supply and demand in the market, but in reality it was a worthless digital currency, the price of which was manipulated and arbitrarily set by the system’s operators.
Scott, who joined the scheme after meeting OneCoin co-founder Ruja Ignatova in September 2015, played a crucial role in the money laundering aspect of the fraud. Despite his defense’s claim that he was unaware of the fraudulent nature of OneCoin, evidence and testimony presented at trial painted a different picture.
Prosecutors alleged that Scott was intimately involved in the operations and set up elaborate offshore fund structures to conceal the origins of the ill-gotten gains.
During the sentencing, the judge examined Scott’s post-conviction actions, which included selling his Porsche and transferring significant amounts of money to the Cayman Islands rather than using them to compensate OneCoin victims. The judge said these actions showed his lack of remorse and unwillingness to help the victims of the scheme he helped perpetuate.
OneCoin unravels
Ruja Ignatova, known as the ‘Cryptoqueen’, remains at large and was added to the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list in June 2022. The case continues to unravel as other OneCoin employees face legal consequences for their involvement in the scheme.
Scott’s conviction is a stark reminder of the risks associated with unregulated digital currencies and the potential for their misuse in large-scale fraud. It serves as a cautionary tale for professionals in the legal and financial industries about the consequences of facilitating or condoning questionable financial transactions.
The OneCoin case remains a touchstone in the discussion about the need for stricter regulation and supervision of the cryptocurrency market.
Scott’s conviction and sentence underscore the seriousness with which the U.S. legal system treats financial crimes, especially those involving emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies. It also highlights the ongoing efforts of law enforcement agencies around the world to bring to justice those involved in one of the most notorious digital currency frauds.
