The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) allegedly played a role in the $4 billion Ponzi scheme OneCoin.
According to a filing by investors Donald Berdeaux and Christine Gablis, BNY Mellon has been accused of playing a “central role” in the OneCoin scam that defrauded investors of more than $4 billion in cryptoassets. The class-action lawsuit, which seeks damages against OneCoin and its founder Ruja Ignatova, has added the American bank to its list of involved parties.
The plaintiffs accused BNY Mellon of processing payments for OneCoin in 2016 and referring to the project as a possible “Ponzi/pyramid scheme” stemming from an internal investigation.
The filing reads,
Accordingly, BNY Mellon knowingly participated in, or was complicit in, laundering OneCoin’s criminal proceeds.
The updated suit follows on the heels of Buzzfeed’s release of thousands of secret SAR reports flagging suspect transactions tied to the BNY Mellon, including $30 million wired from a British Virgin Islands-based company in 2016.
In response to the allegation, a BNY Mellon spokesperson said the bank took “its role in protecting the integrity of the global financial system seriously,” but declined to comment on the particular situation.
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