Two men have been charged in court on Wednesday, April 10 for promoting a multi-level marketing scheme involving a purported cryptocurrency, OneCoin. One of them faced charges for incorporating a company called One Concept Pte Ltd, that allegedly promoted the multi-level marketing scheme.
The investigation conducted by the Commercial Affairs Department revealed that the local residents participated in the suspicious scheme by buying online educational courses bundled with promotional tokens, which could be used to 'mine' for OneCoins.
As per a news release, the participants who brought in new members were also entitled to overriding commissions in contravention of the Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling (Prohibition) Act.
It should be noted that the supposed cryptocurrency OneCoin is purportedly founded by a Bulgarian and has several features which are similar to Bitcoin.
Countries like New Zealand, have issued warnings to the people against having involvement with OneCoin and US have termed it as a fraudulent cryptocurrency. The American government also charged people in connection with OneCoin.
In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) also listed OneCoin and One Concept Pte Ltd on the Investor Alert List (IAL).
The news release added that "the fact that a company is listed on the IAL does not necessarily mean that it has breached any of MAS' regulations. However, investors should bear in mind that these entities have had a past record of being wrongly perceived by others as being licensed by the MAS when they are not."
Officers from the Singapore Police Force also alerted the members of the public about the risks and stated that they should not participate or promote any multi-level marketing scheme involving OneCoin or One Concept Pte Ltd.
They also mentioned that promoters of the scheme involving OneCoin may be subjected to prosecution under the Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling (Prohibition) Act and in case of conviction each charge carries a jail term up to five years and/or a maximum fine of $200,000.
