Sebastian Karl Greenwood, one of the co-founders of the fraudulent OneCoin cryptocurrency, has been sentenced to a 20-year prison term in the United States.

According to authorities, Greenwood collaborated with other individuals, including the infamous "Cryptoqueen," who is currently on the FBI's top 10 Most Wanted list.

They stand accused of defrauding investors of over $4 billion (£3.2 billion).

Greenwood, a 46-year-old citizen of both the UK and Sweden, was apprehended in Thailand in July 2018. In December, he admitted to charges of wire fraud and money laundering. Officials assert that OneCoin, established in Bulgaria in 2014, operated as a global pyramid scheme.

Greenwood, in partnership with Ruja Ignatova, the Cryptoqueen who mysteriously disappeared in Greece in 2017 and remains unaccounted for, founded and managed the company.

OneCoin purportedly aimed to capitalize on Bitcoin's success by leveraging Bitcoin's reputation to persuade investors that OneCoin was an irresistible investment opportunity.

In reality, prosecutors from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York revealed in a news release on Tuesday that, unlike legitimate cryptocurrencies, OneCoin had no genuine value and was conceived as a fraudulent scheme from its inception.
The statement claimed that together, they "operated one of the largest fraud schemes ever perpetrated".

"We hope this lengthy sentence resonates in the financial sector and deters anyone who may be tempted to lie to investors and exploit the cryptocurrency ecosystem through fraud," said US Attorney Damian Williams.

The sentence on Tuesday was handed down by a federal judge in Manhattan. Prosecutors say many OneCoin victims were from the New York region.

The BBC podcast The Missing Cryptoqueen has been documenting the search for Dr Ignatova, the original public face of OneCoin.

The ex-McKinsey consultant had appeared at numerous events and on social media to promote the scheme.

But she disappeared from view around October 2017 and there has not been a confirmed sighting since.

The FBI has offered up to $250,000 for information leading to her arrest, according to the FBI's Most Wanted website.

Her FBI profile says she "is believed to travel with armed guards" and "may have had plastic surgery or otherwise altered her appearance".

Desperate investment is a trap that many are still falling victim of