The transcript of Mark Scott’s October 28th pre-trial conference hearing has been made public.
A lot of the eighty-three page transcript is procedural, however there were some interesting tidbits in it.
Note that not everything below is new information. What is new is grouped with some of what we already knew, which hopefully still makes for an interesting read.
Irina Dilkinska laundered $200 million through Mark Scott
Irina Dilkinska (right) transferred $200 million into investment funds set up by Scott.
When agents questioned Scott about Dilinska, who he was in regular contact with via SMS, he stated he couldn’t remember who she was.
Ruja Ignatova was a client of Locke Lord
Prior to quitting in favor of the far more lucrative business of laundering funds for OneCoin, Mark Scott was an attorney at Locke Lord.
The court transcript reveals that in addition to being a client of Scott’s, Ruja Ignatova was also a client of Locke Lord.
Scott disclosed that Ignatova came in through Locke Lord’s London office.
Based on Scott’s interview, it appears Locke Lord assisted Ignatova in managing her OneCoin real estate empire.
Locke Lord is an international law firm with over six hundred attorneys on staff (Wikipedia), at least one of which is apparently a “an expert in cryptocurrency”.
Again, based on Scott’s interview, the expert is believed to be Peter Courtneidge.
Courtneidge is again referenced in the transcript. Notably there’s no publicly available information linking a Peter Courtneidge to Locke Lord.
Confusingly, later in the transcript Scott’s attorney refers to Peter Courtneidge as “Robert Courtneidge”.
Mr. Courtneidge did analysis for her related data cryptocurrency work because he was a payments expert, and that gave Mr. Scott, frankly, some comfort.
In fact, after that, the firm did a whole bunch of other work for Ruja Ignatova and OneCoin going beyond the introduction, even after Mr. Scott had left the firm.
Specific details are not discussed, however it appears Ignatova was introduced to Locke Lord by Gilbert Armenta.
Frank Schneider thought Mark Scott might be a mole
Communications between OneCoin insiders as they attempted to recover money laundered through Phoenix Funds, reveal Frank Schneider was suspicious of Mark Scott.
Schneider had been tipped off about a January 2017 OneCoin presentation US authorities had given.
Details have not been made public, other than it was a “private law enforcement to law enforcement” presentation.
We suspect it was a presentation given to EU authorities. Likely Bulgaria and/or Germany and/or the UK.
In any event, during the presentation US authorities identified Ruja Ignatova, Sebastian Greenwood “and others” as OneCoin co-conspirators.
There was no mention of Mark Scott, prompting Schneider, upon being briefed on the presentation, to consider Scott might have been “a high-placed U.S. informant”.
Schneider warned Irina Dilkinska and Konstantin Ignatov to
be very, very careful with anything that you are doing right now with Mark Scott because he may actually be a highly placed U.S. informant.
Other than stating the belief Schneider has “access to confidential law enforcement information”, the DOJ did not go into who Schneider’s contacts were/are.
Ruja Ignatova and Irina Dilkinska told Konstantin Ignatov that Mark Scott was a money launderer
In his motion for an acquittal or a retrial, Mark Scott claimed he was ignorant of fraud within OneCoin.
In reality Scott’s role within the Ponzi scheme was crystal clear.
Sometime before mid 2018, Ruja Ignatova and Irina Dilkinska told Konstantin Ignatov that,
(Mark) Scott was a money launderer … brought into the OneCoin scheme by (Gilbert) Armenta.
Mark Scott’s proposed legal ethics expert didn’t want to be named
Prior to trial Mark Scott’s legal team sought to have a legal ethics expert speak on his behalf.
Conventionally an expert witness is named and what they intend discuss is disclosed, so that the court and opposition can evaluate appropriateness.
In this case however, Mark Scott’s attorney informed the court
the individual doesn’t wish that we name him unless we have some indication as to whether this would be permitted or not.
The vague testimony Scott’s attorney put forth was the argument that withholding information about clients from banks, Ruja Ignatova in this case, was not so much about money laundering as it was protecting a client’s interest.
Not surprisingly, the court declined “the unknown testimony of the unknown expert”.
Probably for the best. Trying to defend lying to banks is never a good look.
Irina Dilkinska believed she was next after Mark Scott
Following Mark Scott’s arrest, Irina Dilkinska (right) told Konstantin Ignatov she believed
she was going to be the next one to get arrested, and she didn’t know what to do.
One suggestion put forth by Dilkinska was to destroy records tied to Mark Scott.
The cooperating witness Dilkinska spoke to was Ruja Ignatova’s brother, Konstantin Ignatov.
Following Scott’s arrest in September 2018, Konstantin was next to be arrested in March 2019.
The DOJ has identified Irnina Dilkinska as a OneCoin “key conspirator”. She remains at large.