Having enjoyed a great deal of popularity in its early days, OneCoin has now been branded a pyramid - or Ponzi - scheme by the Italian Antitrust and Consumer Protection Authority (AGCM) and saddled with a €2.5m fine as Italy continues to take a tough stance against digital fraud in general and against OneCoin in particular.
The AGCM opened its investigations into OneCoin last December believing the cryptocurrency was, in their words, "a deceitful Ponzi scheme". They concluded their investigation in February and although OneCoin protested against their treatment, the currency was banned in Italy by the end of that month.
OneCoin have also been told to deliver a detailed plan to the AGCM setting out how they plan to withdraw all promotion of their business in Italy and a warning that if the plan wasn't forthcoming, they would face a significant fine. Predictably no response was tabled so having initially threatened a fine of between €10,000 to €5m, the AGCM has finally set the fine at €2.5m having concluded from their investigations that OneCoin is definitely a “pyramid sales system”.
While Italy is not the only country that has been strengthening its approach towards policing OneCoin's alleged financial fraud - Germany and Hungary in particular have also opened substantial criminal investigations into the company - at time of writing this level of fine is definitely a first.
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