On January 29, 2024, lawyer Mark Scott received a 10-year prison sentence from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York due to his involvement in laundering millions of dollars through the OneCoin digital asset scheme.

Scott, formerly an equity partner at Locke Lord LLP, played a crucial role in the OneCoin scheme, a vast Ponzi operation spanning from 2014 to 2016. His significant contribution involved disguising $400 million in fake private equity funds, known as the “Fenero Funds,” by presenting them as investments from affluent European families. This fraudulent scheme, operating through an extensive multi-level marketing network, utilized intricate transactions across various bank accounts to mislead global financial institutions, facilitating the transfer of OneCoin proceeds while circumventing anti-money laundering measures.

Despite OneCoin’s lack of actual value, Scott managed to amass over $50 million from his money laundering activities. He indulged in extravagant purchases, including luxury watches, a Ferrari, Porsches, a 57-foot Sunseeker yacht, and multimillion-dollar homes in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The scheme’s co-founder, ‘Cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova, remains at large, while Scott’s co-founder Karl Greenwood was sentenced to two decades in prison in September 2023.

In addition to the prison term, Scott, 55, of Coral Gables, Florida, was sentenced to three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to forfeit a money judgment in the amount of $392,940,000, several bank accounts, a yacht, two Porsche automobiles, and four real estate properties