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Two Promoters of OneCoin Crypto Scam Found Dead in Mexico

Onecoin promoters dead

A shocking report has just revealed the death of two promoters of the OneCoin cryptocurrency Ponzi Scheme that defrauded a lot of investors. Their bodies were found stuffed up into suitcases and dumped in a vacant lot in Mazatlan, Sinaloa. 

The deceased were identified as Oscar Brito Ibarra and Ignacio Ibarra. The local Mexican authorities believe the deaths are homicide as autopsy suggests the men were suffocated. Authorities further noted that investigations are still ongoing as they commended local media La Tercera for doing the leg work on the story.

Investigations into Brito’s bio revealed that he was a writer who lived with his parents in Chile and appeared to have gotten involved in multi-level market (MLM) schemes in late 2017, starting with forex trading schemes. He also signed up for OneCoin affiliate in 2017. 

OneCoin is a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that defrauded many investors during its years of operation. Authorities from different countries have warned investors about the fraudulent nature of OneCoin and have convicted several promoters of the scheme. One of Coinfomnia’s recent stories about OneCoin reports a 52-year old man in Singapore who was charged with promoting the OneCoin scheme. He was asked to pay a fine of $72k.

See Also: Crypto in Church? New Zealand Probes Second Church Over OneCoin Ponzi Scheme

Only the pyramid recruitment side was operating at the time Brito signed up for the scheme as it was after OneCoin’s Ponzi scheme had collapsed. Then, Brito needed to convince people to invest and had to pitch them on OneCoin’s failed e-commerce platform, DealShaker.

Brito went further to promote the scam across the whole of Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. He partnered up with a small group of Chilean OneCoin affiliates for the proper execution of the fraudulent scheme.

Two years later, Brito learned of the Latin American Automotive Marketing Company (CLA), a company that operated in Argentina and Columbia and accepted cryptocurrencies as payments for cars. The investigations further suggested that Brito had traveled to Argentina to meet Cristian Cabrera, CLA’s representative, and convince them to accept OneCoin and promote its service on DealShaker.

Cabrera reportedly accepted the proposal as it was discovered that he later traveled to Chile to promote the scheme with another CLA representative, Ignacio Ibarra in February this year. Brito, who had become a local CLA representative, began to lend credibility to the scheme among local OneCoin promoters.

Having successfully promoted CLA to Chile’s OneCoin community, Brito traveled to Mexico to visit CLA’s head office. Meanwhile, reports of CLA scamming people in other countries had emerged at this time.

Victims then began to seek out these scammers, efforts proved abortive at first, but some group of promoters was later able to track down Cristián Cabrera and Ignacio Ibarra. They promised to find solutions, but they made no efforts in fulfillment of the promise and continued traveling to promote the scheme instead.

As usual, they went on another trip on June 20, and it was on this trip they were discovered missing. The bodies of Brito and Ibarra were then found a few days later.

About the author

Caroline John

Caroline is a zealous writer who recently picked interest in Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency community. She's always learning about the industry and aims to provide timely and accurate information about the latest developments in the crypto space.