Two OneCoin scam promoters killed, still scamming at the end of June

According to a recent report, two participants in the massive cryptocurrency scam OneCoin have been found dead in Mexico. One of them joined the notorious Ponzi scheme in 2017 and was particularly active in the Latin American region in spreading misleading information and defrauding victims.

The report states that Mexican authorities found Oscar Brito Ibarra and Ignacio Ibarra (no relation) in Mazatlan, Sinaloa. Their bodies were stuffed into suitcases and dumped in an open field. A full examination later determined the cause of death was asphyxiation. Local police are treating the incident as a homicide and have launched an investigation.

The report also provides more details about Oscar Brito Ibarra and one of the cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes he was involved in, OneCoin. After being involved in several suspicious MLM activities in late 2017, Brito signed up for OneCoin in September of that year. He furthered his involvement by working with a small group of Chilean OneCoin affiliates. Together, they traveled through Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia to promote the scam and increase the number of investors and followers.

In 2019, as the nature of the scam was worsening and awareness of its core problems was growing, Brito joined a company that accepted cryptocurrency as payment for cars, the Latin American Automotive Marketing Company (CLA).

In early 2020, he brought Ignacio Ibarra into the group, and the two traveled across Latin America several times to continue promoting the scheme. The two used marketing tactics such as advertising to potential victims that they could buy vehicles at a lower price if they used the OneCoin system.

However, that’s when reports began to emerge that CLA was a fraudulent program, and the two stopped traveling after COVID-19 caused lockdowns in Latin America. By the end of June, Brito and Ibarra went to Mazatlán, where they intended to attract more customers because CLA appeared to have resumed activity.

A few days later, the bodies of the two men surfaced. Citing a recent DEA document, the report argues that the deaths can be attributed to organized crime: "According to this research, some Mexican drug cartels have been using virtual currencies to launder money for some time. There is evidence that Mexican transnational criminal organizations use cryptocurrencies as a means of transferring their international wealth." Despite the lack of exact details, both Brito and Ibarra successfully deceived numerous victims into investing directly in OneCoin and CLA.

The OneCoin scam was launched in Bulgaria in 2014 and stole nearly $4 billion from investors around the world. Despite being classified as a fraud in many countries, it was not fully dissolved until late 2019. However, the company's founder, Ruja Ignatov, disappeared after leaving the company in 2017, and her whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Original link: https://cryptopotato.com/two-promoters-of-4-billion-crypto-ponzi-found-dead-in-mexico/