Back in 2016, Christopher Hamilton was picked up by the City of London Police.
Hamilton’s bank had told the police about some strange transactions he had made. After looking into it, it was found that the transactions were linked to OneCoin.
Along with Hamilton’s arrest, the CoLP also took £30 million in checks that convicted OneCoin money launderer Gilbert Armenta is said to have sent to Hamilton.
When the bust happened, CoLP said it was the “biggest seizure ever” by a UK law enforcement agency.
After a year, CoLP gave the £30 million back and took down their press release.
After the CoLP caught Hamilton, they found out that the FBI was already looking into him. The FBI sent a request for extradition right away.
As part of Hamilton’s extradition case, the CoLP was told to give Hamilton the £30 million that they had laundered. This was done to show that MLM-related securities fraud in the UK is not properly regulated.
The Times wrote about this on January 23;
In August 2017, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court made a decision about extradition. That decision said that the police force agreed to return the money because it had illegally taken the money.
It seems that UK law is so bad that taking money from people who use Ponzi schemes to launder money is against the law.
After dithering for another two years, the CoLP finally said in 2019 that it would stop looking into OneCoin.
The FCA did nothing while more and more evidence showed that the UK was a key part of OneCoin’s network for laundering money.
In 2020, the FCA gave approval for a known OneCoin money launderer to work for another company as a “Money Laundering Reporting Officer.”
It’s still not clear if the US government was able to get back the £30 million that the CoLP gave to OneCoin in 2017.
Christopher Hamilton lost his case against being sent to the US in August of last year. Before Hamilton can be sent back to the US, the UK government still needs to give its approval.
Since authorities in the UK have stopped looking into OneCoin, Hamilton could spend up to 40 years in prison if he is found guilty in the US.
