The FinCEN Files leak contains two Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) pertaining to then suspected OneCoin fraud.
The leaked SARs reports flagged $137.6 million in OneCoin related transactions.
The twenty-nine transactions took place between 2015 and 2016 and spanned thirteen banks, one of which was the Bank of New York Mellon.
The bank wrote that the companies appeared to be engaged in “layering” — a technique used to disguise the source of illicit funds by routing it through multiple transactions.
Another was Associated Foreign Exchange Inc., who flagged $50,000 transferred from an Australian woman to “two OneCoin companies”.
We don’t know who this person is for sure, other than she owns/owned an “organic skin care company”.
One possibility is OneCoin distributor Catherine Olarte (aka Cathie Louchloecha), who sells Glow Essence Skin Care on OneCoin’s Deal Shaker platform:
Olarte’s provided DealShaker contact details is a street address in Queensland, Australia.
Based on Glow Essence Skin Care’s Facebook page activity, Olarte was an active OneCoin distributor up until late 2019:
Whether the OneCoin SARs assisted US prosecutors put together their case against OneCoin found Ruja Ignatova and her money laundering co-conspirators is unclear.
Although indicted and wanted by US authorities, Ignatova remains a fugitive on the run. She hasn’t been seen since late 2017.
The FinCEN Files are a series of leaked SARs initially provided to BuzzFeed.
BuzzFeed shared the leak with ICIJ and other organizations, who together processed the leaked information for publication.
Unfortunately a decision has been made not to share the full reports. As such we have to rely on redacted reporting for now.