Bank of Ireland execs to be questioned on OneCoin scam

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The government of the U.S. has submitted a court motion seeking to have executives from the Bank of Ireland (BOI) testify in the case against OneCoin cryptocurrency scam. The execs will provide material inculpatory testimony about Mark Scott, one of the proprietors of OneCoin.

The government submitted the court motion requiring the execs to testify on September 29 at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The motion requests the four executives to testify via closed-circuit television from a remote location in Ireland. The witnesses are all present or former employees of BOI.

The witnesses include the head of BOI’s anti-money laundering team Diane Sands, former executive vice president and director of relationships Derek Collins, Dierde Ceannt, a team member of the bank’s foreign direct investment team and Greg Begley who reportedly worked closely with Scott.

The U.S. government believes that despite some of the evidence against Scott being in the form of documents which they already possess, the witnesses can offer much more context. Part of the court motion stated:

While some of the testimony to be offered by the Witnesses of course relates to, and relies on records, including email correspondence, provided by BOI to the Government, the Witnesses’ anticipated testimony is broader than the information contained in these records and cannot be substituted by introduction of the records alone. Additionally, in the case of email evidence, the Witnesses’ testimony is vital to provide necessary context so that the jury can fairly evaluate that evidence.

Scott held corporate bank accounts at the Bank of Ireland through which he is alleged to have laundered over $300 million in OneCoin proceeds. He purportedly registered several private equity funds in the British Virgin islands which held bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. He is alleged to have transferred over $273 million from these accounts to the corporate accounts he held at the BOI.

The witnesses will help the U.S. government prove that Scott misrepresented the source of the money.

OneCoin is one of the largest scams in the crypto industry, with investors having lost billions of dollars to the project. However, despite the immense and incriminating evidence against the company, the founders have disputed the accusations, stating in May that they are a legitimate firm that conducts the required AML and KYC programs.

However, this hasn’t prevented investors from filing lawsuits against the firm. In July, one of the aggrieved investors who lost $750,000 filed a lawsuit in New York. OneCoin’s pleas of innocence have also done little to dissuade the judge presiding over the case against one of its founders, Konstantin Ignatov. The judge denied the accused bond in July, forcing him to await trial in jail.