Lawyer Laundered $400 Million in Crypto Scam, U.S. Says
- Mark Scott claims he didn’t know OneCoin currency was a scam
- Bulgarian founder of alleged Ponzi scheme disappeared in 2017
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A prosecutor told a jury that a lawyer on trial for laundering $400 million in a massive cryptocurrency scam was motivated by a goal he once stated in a text message: “50 by 50,” or $50 million by age 50.
Mark Scott, 51, set up a phony investment fund that he used to process money from Ruja Ignatova, the Bulgarian woman behind OneCoin Ltd., a Ponzi scheme based on a fraudulent blockchain-based digital currency system, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Folly said in his closing argument Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. Folly claimed Scott was paid $50 million “just for laundering Ruja’s money.”