One of the victim’s of the OneCoin cryptocurrency scam is receiving death threats for her actions against the con artists.
According to the BBC, Jen McAdam from Glasgow is receiving messages threatening sexual violence and death from people whom she believes are OneCoin supporters.
McAdam has been part of the on-going BBC podcast, The Missing Cryptoqueen, in which reporters are exploring the OneCoin scam and searching for its figurehead, Ruja Ignatova. She’s been a pivotal voice in speaking out against Ignatova and her accomplices, revealing the tactics scammers used in the scheme to con as much as £4 billion ($5 billion) from victims around the world.
But it seems not everyone is able to stomach the truth that OneCoin is nothing more than an old-fashioned Ponzi scheme with no actual product.
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“It is horrible, the abuse is vile and the threats feel very real to me, I’m always looking over my shoulder now,” McAdam told the BBC.
“It is taking its toll on my health but I will not give up until me and the thousands of other OneCoin victims like me see some form of justice,” she added.
McAdam is just one of 70,000 UK-based victims who invested into the OneCoin scam.
The Glaswegian invested £8,000 ($10,000) of her personal finances into the Ponzi scheme; she also ended up forming a layer of the pyramid herself after encouraging friends and family to invest a further £220,000 ($279,000) into OneCoin.
Ruja Ignatova, along with her brother, Konstantin Ignatov, ran OneCoin which claimed to be a new and better version of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
They held elaborate and glamorous events where they pitched OneCoin to potential investors, and claimed it was going to change the world and usher in a new world of financial freedom. Those who invested early were told they would be at the start of a revolution.
However, nothing actually existed, OneCoin didn’t have a blockchain or a cryptocurrency. Ignatova has since vanished and is being charged with money laundering offenses.
McAdam is campaigning for the OneCoin scam to be taken more seriously in the UK and has reported the death threats to the police. More power to her. The more victims that speak out against scams like this, the better.
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