Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) joined the list of financial markets regulators taking notice of the OneCoin MLM scam and published a warning.
In a publication on its site the regulator said it has become aware of the website www.onecoin.eu and a Facebook page entitled “OneCoin Malta” which are promoting what appears to be a virtual currency by the name of “OneCoin” and are offering a range of services, including the opportunity to invest in, mine, trade, use and benefit from the value of OneCoin.
The MFSA informs the public that OneCoin is neither issued by a central bank or another public authority, nor are the promoters of the “currency” regulated by the MFSA. The watchdog notes there have been warnings against OneCoin, like from UK’s FCA and that cryptocurrencies are in general risky.
“The MFSA is concerned about the risks that OneCoin poses to consumers and therefore strongly advises the public and consumers of financial services to exercise extreme caution”, the regulator said.
OneCoin is a MLM fraudulent scheme based in Bulgaria and ran by Dr. Ruzha Ignatova. It claims it mines OneCoins – a special type of cryptocurrency that could bring big profits to those who sign up for the training “seminars” of the company. The company claims it has mined 749,970,000 OneCoins and has “ global customer base of millions of people in over 195 countries and six continents and is independent of governments”. The scheme has the penchant of throwing lavish parties across the world to promote itself and attract gullible investors.
It falls occasionally in the sights of various financial regulators. There have been warnings against it from Belgium, UK, Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, investigations in Sweden and publications in various European media telling of the scam and likening the OneCoin to “Monopoly money”.
Only recently the German financial markets watchdog BaFin banned IMS International Marketing Services GmbH – a OneCoin partner collecting fees from German investors on behalf of the scheme.
