Episode 972 of Planet Money : The CryptoQueen (3)
ARONCZYK: Timothy first heard about OneCoin back in 2015, and it immediately looked suspicious to him.
BARTLETT: As soon as Tim Curry saw that, rather than there being a kind of easy way of buying and selling OneCoin for dollars and back again, you have to buy these confusing packages and you got commission to sell to your friends - which no other cryptocurrency was like - you know, alarm bells went off in his head. And he thought, this can't be right.
+ go off : 1. (특히 무엇을 하러)자리를 뜨다 -> ex : She went off to get a drink
2. 발사되다, 폭발하다 -> ex : The gun went off by accident
3. (경보기 등이) 울리다
4. (불, 전기 등이) 나가다
ARONCZYK: Timothy's at home, and he's looking at this. And he's like, wait a second - this is not a real cryptocurrency. Now, cryptocurrencies don't always seem real in the first place to a lot of people. But if you're into them, you know that a legitimate cryptocurrency has a few safeguards, like an open ledger called the blockchain that anybody can participate in, and there's a market where you can trade the currency. OneCoin had none of those things - no blockchain, no market, no way to turn them back into dollars. So Timothy was convinced it was a scam.
And he wanted to do something about it.
+ ledger : (은행, 사업체 등에서 거래 내역을 적은) 원장
+ scam : 신용사기
BARTLETT: He became a bit of an online vigilante. He sort of took it upon himself to, I think, spend, like, 12 or 14 hours a day online warning people about OneCoin, trying to stop people from investing and trying to call out investors wherever he could.
+ vigilante : 자경단원
+ take A upon sbself to v : 독자적으로 ~를 하기로 결심하다.
+ call out : (특히 위급한 상황에서) 부르다, 호출하다
ARONCZYK: Timothy joins OneCoin Facebook groups. And he's like, guys, wake up; this is a scam. He kind of starts freaking out. He contacts hundreds of people.
+ freak out - 자동사
BARTLETT: And one of the people he comes across is Jen McAdam.
+ come across : 우연히 발견하다. (특정한) 인상을 주다. 이해되다.
ARONCZYK: Jen McAdam, the Scottish investor. Timothy Curry thinks Jen is a promoter - that she's part of the scam. So he gets in touch with her. And this next recording, which is kind of alarming, is a video chat between Timothy and Jen. It's a fight, and Jen recorded it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CURRY: OneCoin is not a cryptocurrency. There is no blockchain, and I can prove it.
MCADAM: Yes, there's a blockchain, Tim.
CURRY: I can prove it to you that there's not.
MCADAM: Well, then prove it to me.
CURRY: I'll f****** prove it. It's a f****** scam.
MCADAM: For me, that...
CURRY: This is the biggest scam in the world right now. Do you understand? It's the biggest scam in the f****** world.
BARTLETT: He sees Jen as a OneCoin promoter because he's seen that she's selling it to her friends and family. At that point, she has been told by OneCoin that this guy Timothy Curry is a dangerous fanatic who hates OneCoin because he's scared of the financial revolution. And he sees her as being this kind of scam artist who's ripping people off.
+ fanatic : 광신도
+ rip off : (미국 속어) 훔쳐내다, 속이다, 파괴하다
ARONCZYK: First Jen's like, no way - it is not possible that OneCoin is a scam.
BARTLETT: I know it sounds ludicrous, but once you've put your money into something, it's actually quite hard to let go of that. You know, you don't want to believe the truth because it's too hard to take.
+ ludicrous : 터무니 없는 (=absurd, ridiculous)
ARONCZYK: But over the next few weeks after that video call, Timothy sends Jen all of this stuff about how cryptocurrencies actually work. He sends links and articles and YouTube videos.
MCADAM: So he sent me loads of information, which took me three months to eventually go through and digest it, to understand it.
+ go through : 통과하다, 살펴보다(검토하다)
BARTLETT: So the things he sent you, slowly, you did start looking at - you did start reading?
MCADAM: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Once it starts to digesting, then that's when the serious red flags were popping up.
ARONCZYK: Then Timothy told her, go on - go ask the people at OneCoin to show you the blockchain. See what happens. See what they say.
MCADAM: So I started asking my OneCoin leaders, was there a blockchain? And I want answers.
ARONCZYK: The more questions she asks of those OneCoin leaders, the more defensive they get. They say that she doesn't need to see it, that it's stored somewhere secretive. And it's at that point she realizes there is no blockchain and there is no OneCoin.
+ secretive : 비밀스러운
MCADAM: And I - literally, my legs just went, and I fell on the floor.
ARONCZYK: Jen's investment is worthless. The 250,000 euros her friends and family had invested is gone. It's finally clear to her - OneCoin is a scam.
BARTLETT: But the problem is, even at the bottom of the pyramid, there are people that are selling it, too, to their friends and family, often unwittingly. So the line between perpetrator and victim is just not clear when you're dealing with this kind of pyramid scheme.
+ unwittingly : 자기도 모르게, 부지불식간에
+ perpetrator : 가해자
ARONCZYK: Not even Igor Alberts, the multilevel marketer who got rich off OneCoin, admits to knowing that the cryptocurrency was a fake.
+ get rich off : off는 여기서 from이다.
ALBERTS: I have no clue about cryptocurrency at all - nothing. But what I saw is a lot of people that have a lot of knowledge about it. I see those people making the money. What doubt can I have?
ARONCZYK: Igor told Jamie that there were all sorts of mysteries behind OneCoin.
ALBERTS: You never know what is behind because when we started, there were very influential people behind.
BARTLETT: Would you tell us anything about who they are?
ALBERTS: No, I cannot tell that because I don't want to take that risk with our lives.
ARONCZYK: Don't want to take that risk with our lives - that wasn't the only time that Jamie heard this fear. There was a rumor that the mafia was somehow involved with OneCoin, which might help to explain what happened next. Jamie learned that in 2017, money was still pouring into OneCoin. Dr. Ruja was still flying around the world promoting it. And then there was this big event. It was supposed to be in Portugal, and Dr. Ruja was scheduled to speak.
ALBERTS: Dr. Ruja was extremely disciplined.
ARONCZYK: Igor was there that night helping promote OneCoin.
ALBERTS: It never happened that she didn't show up for an appointment. And she was always on time - not one minute late.
BARTLETT: Then suddenly, at this event in Lisbon, Portugal, she just doesn't turn up.
+ turn up : 나타나다, 찾게 되다
ALBERTS: The people from the office were desperate. We saw them. Where is she? How can that be? We should call her one more time.
BARTLETT: Frantic calls and emails; she's not at the head office in Sofia.
+ frantic : 정신없이 서두는, 제정신이 아닌
ALBERTS: She didn't react on the email, not on the WhatsApp or nothing. Nothing helped.
BARTLETT: That's the last time, really, anyone hears anything of her. She seems to have vanished into thin air.
+ vanish : (갑자기 불가사의하게) 사라지다, 없어지다
ALBERTS: And nobody knew where is Dr. Ruja.
ARONCZYK: We'll be back in one moment.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARONCZYK: Dr. Ruja was the founder and the face of OneCoin, but Jamie says she wasn't running the company alone.
BARTLETT: When Ruja disappeared in October 2017, her brother Konstantin took over and essentially became the acting boss of OneCoin.
+ takeover : 기업인수, 탈취
+ take over : 인계받다, 탈취(장악)하다
ARONCZYK: Konstantin, who is this tattooed bodybuilder, was Dr. Ruja's personal assistant before she disappeared. And for about a year and a half, he's the one running OneCoin. But then he makes a mistake. In March 2019, Konstantin travels to Las Vegas. He's there for some meetings. And then he heads to LAX to fly back to Bulgaria. Now, up until that time, OneCoin had largely avoided the U.S., probably for good reason - because just as Konstantin was preparing to board his flight, he was picked up by the FBI.
+ up until that time : 그 당시까지
BARTLETT: So when he was arrested in the U.S., it was essentially the U.S. arresting the big boss of the whole scam.
ARONCZYK: Konstantin and Dr. Ruja, in absentia, were charged with a list of crimes...
+ be charged with : 1. ~로 가득차있다 -> ex : He is charged with hatred 그는 증오심으로 가득 차 있다.
2. ~의 책임을 맡고있다 -> ex : The soldiers will be charged with security in southern 그 군단은 남쪽 지방의 치안 업무를 담당할 것이다.
3. ~의 혐의를 받다 -> ex : You can be charged with obstruction of justice. 이러시면 공무집행 방해로 처벌받을 수 있어요.
++ obstruction : 방해, 가로막음, 장애물
BARTLETT: Money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud. The state attorney essentially called OneCoin an old-fashioned pyramid scheme using new technology. So they're pretty serious charges, obviously.
+ conspiracy : 음모
+ wire fraud : 인터넷 뱅킹을 이용한 금융사기
+ scheme [ skiːm ] : 계획, 책략, 책략을 꾸미다
ARONCZYK: Konstantin gets sent to jail in lower Manhattan. He hasn't been sentenced yet, but he could be going to prison for 90 years. Dr. Ruja - she's at large. At the time of the arrest, Jamie and BBC producer Georgia Catt are deeply into reporting their podcast. They end up calling it The Missing Cryptoqueen. And for a moment, they wonder if that's the end of the story. But people are clearly still investing in OneCoin online. There are still webinars and new videos. And perhaps strangest of all, a month after Konstantin's arrest, OneCoin organizers have planned a beauty pageant...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
+ pageant : 가장행렬, 야외극
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: The first annual Miss OneLife 2019 beauty pageant. For the first time...
ARONCZYK: OneCoin was like this machine that had been so well-built, it just seemed to keep going. Jamie and Georgia Catt, the BBC producer, are like, what is this?
SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARTLETT: And they're saying the biggest beauty pageant in the world...
GEORGIA CATT: The biggest event in the world.
BARTLETT: The biggest event in the world. And millions of people will be watching, the media...
CATT: All the mainstream media outlets.
BARTLETT: All the mainstream media and...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: The biggest event in the world...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARTLETT: And we're thinking, OK, what? This is ridiculous. We thought, we got to go because it's a OneCoin event.
CATT: So we tried calling the organizer, a multi-level marketer networker called Cristi Calina. And remarkably, he answered. And I think we weren't quite expecting him to answer.
+ remarkably : 놀랍게도, 현저하게, 매우
BARTLETT: No.
CATT: And he kind of said, yes, sure, come along.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: See you in Romania.
ARONCZYK: Georgia and Jamie make their way to Romania, and they buy themselves some last-minute cocktail party attire.
+ attire : 의복, 복장
CATT: And yeah, we're right there in the evening. And it was a really big event.
BARTLETT: Champagne on every table, vodka on every table.
CATT: And people - just cigar smoke everywhere.
BARTLETT: Oh, there's four more bottles of champagne coming out. Just send away a bottle my way. Oh, dear, OK, that's what we do. Yeah, what can you say was? I mean, it was a beauty pageant with real people, real contestants. No other media. There wasn't any other international media, of course.
I thought we're just going to blend in. We are not blending in.
ARONCZYK: They're sitting in the corner. They're not drinking. They're holding this giant microphone. And they feel like they're really sticking out.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Unintelligible).
+ intelligible : 이해할 수 있는
BARTLETT: The music's going down.
CATT: It was really, really surreal.
+ surreal(=surrealistic) : 아주 이상한, 비현실적인
BARTLETT: Oh, my God. The stage has descended from the ceiling. Oh, my God.
ARONCZYK: As they're watching the pageant, Jamie and Georgia realized that this event isn't being held just for the people in a club. This event is being livestreamed.
BARTLETT: And you're watching this pageant at home. And you're seeing, wow, there's this huge beauty pageant, loads of people, champagne. This has to be a legitimate company. Champagne's being popped. So it kind of made us realize, I think, just how good these scammers are at creating a sort of facade of believability, just enough that an ordinary person that doesn't understand the technology will believe that OneCoin is legitimate.
+ facade : 정면, 표면, 허울
ARONCZYK: Jamie says that OneCoin was able to keep the lie going even though the founder had disappeared, the boss was arrested by controlling that image, that facade of believability and also by going after anyone who tried to attack them. Even before the first episode of The Missing Cryptoqueen was released, the BBC was flooded with complaints. And then once a couple of episodes were out, someone posted this really odd, negative video about Jamie.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: OneCoin, How to Disrupt BBC Propaganda by Jamie Bartlett.
BARTLETT: I got onto this fairly well-known BBC news program just to talk about the podcast. And probably within 24 hours, footage of me being interviewed on that program had been taken by OneCoin promoters, re-edited, basically insulting me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
+ footage : 장면, 화면
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: Jamie Bartlett is not a serious journalist with ethical practices. It's like a children who want the attention, and it's just for his personal interest. But nobody listen you.
BARTLETT: They edited a red nose onto my face, played stupid music over the top, basically saying to OneCoin promoters, you can ignore this podcast about OneCoin. It's all lies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
+ over the top : 여기서는 음악을 위에 깔다라는 의미로 통함
BARTLETT: Well, I mean, Jen, as well, you know, it was sort of F, F...
ARONCZYK: (Laughter).
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: F, F, F. This guy cannot even speak correctly. And he has pretend to have made serious investigation about OneCoin.
BARTLETT: You're talking about people that have invested money and are now tied into the program. And they have to recruit more people. So you being out there criticizing them, calling it a scam is directly harming their personal prospects. So invariably, what happens is those current investors will do anything to silence you.
+ invariably : 변함없이, 언제나
ARONCZYK: And they don't just criticize Jamie and the BBC. OneCoiners have even gone after people like Jen McAdam, the Scottish woman you heard from before. Jamie says that once the podcast was out and Jen was publicly out there calling OneCoin a scam, she received all sorts of awful messages.
+ publicly : 공공연하게, 공개적으로, 공적으로
BARTLETT: Some of the messages that you've received so far - what have you got?
MCADAM: Online?
BARTLETT: Yeah.
MCADAM: Death threats.
BARTLETT: What were people saying?
MCADAM: You won't be living within the next few days. And there was sexual abuse threats, as well. I really - I don't even want to repeat it. It's not nice at all. Sometimes, I feel as though I'm in a nightmare that I just can't wake up from. I try to contain it because of my loved ones, not to show them that I'm worried. I don't sleep. I just worry constantly.
+ contain : 함유되어있다, 포함하다, 억제하다
ARONCZYK: She's now doing for others what Timothy did for her, trying to help people see what OneCoin really is through the smoke and mirrors.
+ through the smoke and mirrors : 교묘한 속임수
MCADAM: I mean, I speak to people every day that are suicidal, and this is only the beginning. They don't want to hear this because they've gave everything they've got. They've sold their houses. Who wants to hear someone say, listen - this is actually a scam? They don't want to hear that. And I understand that. I really do understand that because I was there.
ARONCZYK: We reached out to OneCoin but didn't hear back. They did get back to the BBC, though, and they denied any wrongdoing. OneCoin had told the BBC, quote, "OneCoin verifiably fulfills all criteria of the definition of a cryptocurrency," end of quote. The company also claimed that they are challenging the allegations made about it, stating, quote, "Our partners, our customers and our lawyers are fighting successfully against this action around the globe. And we are sure that the vision of a new system on the basis of a financial revolution will be established." Since the FBI got involved and the BBC podcast came out, the growth of OneCoin seems like it's finally slowing down. The last time I looked, the website wasn't even working. But it's clear that this kind of international online scam, especially one that exploits our ignorance about new technologies, it's more like a contagion than a business - self-spreading, leaderless.
BARTLETT: No one's entirely sure whose jurisdiction it is. No one's sure whether it's a cryptocurrency or not. Technically speaking, because OneCoin is not really regulated, no regulator is in charge of it.
ARONCZYK: Because so much of OneCoin's rise happened online, it's a crime that's happening everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Meanwhile, Dr. Ruja is still missing, and so is all of the money that people invested. But some of the same people who are involved in OneCoin, they've started something new.
BARTLETT: We heard that there's a new opportunity...
SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: Yes. Yes. And we are here with the reason...
BARTLETT: ...Run by some of the same people with a very similar compensation scheme called Dagcoin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: We like to bring the real future of payment. We like to...
BARTLETT: Even when OneCoin dies, there are many other similar things out there that look remarkably alike.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: (Singing) Let's go, crypto. Let's go cashless. Let's go, crypto. Get your money. Let's go cashless. OneCoin.
ARONCZYK: Has your leader disappeared? Email us at planetmoney@npr.org and let us know. We're also on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook at @PlanetMoney. Thanks to Georgia Catt and Rachel Simpson at the BBC, Nolan Bauerle at Coindesk and Jeff Locke. Please also be sure to check out the eight-part part BBC series. It's called The Missing Cryptoqueen. There's so much more to the story. There's what Dr. Ruja was up to before OneCoin, just how far OneCoin traveled. And, of course, they have a lot more details on the whereabouts of the missing cryptoqueen. This episode was produced by Liza Yeager. Planet Money's editor is Bryant Urstadt. And our supervising producer is Alex Goldmark. Also, one more thing - PLANET MONEY has a newsletter. You should check it out - npr.org/planetmoneynewsletter. I'm Amanda Aronczyk. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: OneCoin, together for all (ph).