OneCoin: Cryptoqueen’s millions seized in Guernsey ready to compensate fraud victims
A court in Guernsey has ordered the seizure of £8.5m. linked to Cryptoqueen Dr Ruja Iganatova that was sat in an island bank account.
It is a key step in the process of compensating victims of the OneCoin scandal, who lost more than £3.2bn in one of the biggest frauds in history.
Read the full OneCoin story and its links to Guernsey:
Nick Mann
Iganatova was the beneficial owner of two property companies set up in Guernsey to buy a London penthouse and flat.
She has not been seen in eight years, disappearing soon after an arrest warrant was issued for her in the United States.
German prosecutors in Bielefeld are part of the efforts to bring her to justice and compensate the victims. They have been working with Guernsey authorities over the London properties.
The properties were sold for a combined £11.4m. as part of those efforts.
A public court hearing on whether to register the Bielefeld Overseas Forfeiture Order had been scheduled for Tuesday morning, but was pulled from the calendar with the only objection made by lawyers acting on behalf of the companies having been withdrawn when it was agreed there would be no cost orders.
There is still no sign of Ignatova, who remains on the FBI’s most wanted list.
In a document dated Friday 16 January, Lieutenant Bailiff Russell Finch ordered that £8,590,200.92 plus accrued interest held in a Royal Bank of Scotland account in the name of Aquitaine Group is credited to the Seized Asset Fund.
The next stage is for a meeting of the management committee that oversees how money in that fund is spent, but the accepted process is that assets first go back to identified victims.
Aquitaine were the trust company that set up the two property owning companies, Abbots House Penthouse Limited and Abbots Property Limited, in the summer of 2016.
Comments ()