Christopher Hamilton’s OneCoin cash laundering indictment has been unsealed.
Initially filed again in March 2019, Hamilton’s indictment particulars two counts of fraud.
As per his indictment, Hamilton labored with co-conspirator Robert MacDonald to launder over $100 million for OneCoin.
Hamilton (proper) and MacDonald structured their transfers in such a method as to “conceal and disguise the character, location, supply, possession, and management of the proceeds”.
In different phrases, traditional cash laundering.
Cited as wire fraud, one OneCoin transaction noticed Hamilton and MacDonald switch round $40 million from China to the US.
As a substitute of reaching OneCoin’s banking channels nonetheless, Hamilton and MacDonald diverted the funds to
financial institution accounts managed by Hamilton and MacDonald in different Asian and European nations.
One of many corporations Hamilton and MacDonald created and used is Viola Cash – additionally utilized by the lately collapsed Ponzi scheme Omega Professional.
After Viola Cash Hamilton began up Blukite Group Restricted in 2020. Whether or not Blukite Group was additionally used to launder cash for Ponzi schemes is unclear.
For his or her efforts in helping OneCoin defraud customers, the DOJ charged Hamilton and MacDonald with
- one depend of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; and
- one depend of conspiracy to commit cash laundering.
Hamilton and MacDonald had been arrested within the UK again in 2019. The US filed for extradition however solely secured Hamilton’s switch.
MacDonald was granted an attraction towards extradition on humanitarian grounds.
McDonald is the carer for his “extraordinarily in poor health” spouse who suffers from progressive a number of sclerosis, and has expressed “clear and real suicidal intent, within the occasion he had been to be extradited,” the judgment reads.
As of August 2022, Hamilton’s extradition to the US was pending. Following the unsealing of his indictment and legal case, Hamilton is believed to have been extradited.
That mentioned, I used to be unable to seek out him as a BOP inmate. Pending affirmation he’s been extradited, Hamilton’s standing stays unclear.
If convicted Hamilton faces as much as 40 years in jail. He may also need to forfeit his OneCoin ill-gotten positive factors.