Fake OneCoin ‘License’ is a Forgery, Confirms Vietnam’s Government
The government of Vietnam has debunked the claims of promoters of OneCoin, a digital currency scheme commonly seen as a scam, who purported to have received a regulatory license to operate in the country.
Earlier this month in a communal event for affiliates, OneCoin operators reportedly showed off a document that claimed OneCoin had been granted a license to operate in the country with a seal of approval by the Department of Management. According to popular scam-informant and resource BehindMLM, Vietnamese OneCoin affiliates celebrated the notion that ‘Vietnam became the first country in Asia to be licensed by the government’ citing the document as proof.
Vietnam The first govenement accept trading cryptocurrency academy onecoin pic.twitter.com/CICQeqIJW1
— OneCoin (@OneCointycoon) June 18, 2017
Within days of the document making the rounds on social media, the Vietnamese government swiftly moved to rebuke such claims. A local report in Vietnamese publication Dau Thau – citing the government’s official response – confirms the purported license documents to be a forgery, complete with faked signature of the Department of Management’s deputy director Nguyen Dang Truong.
The government’s statement, issued by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) revealed that the ministry began receiving a number of public queries about the document, on June 19th. The now-debunked license document was purportedly signed on June 16.
‘On 16/6/2017, the Hanoi Investment Management Department officially signed a document confirming that the ONECOIN electronic money business of TRIDENT CRYPTO ACADEMY is not contrary to the laws of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,’ read an excerpt of an announcement by OneCoin’s Vietnamese website at the time. That celebratory post is no longer seen on the website.
Also read: ‘OneCoin’ Isn’t Blockchain-Based and Uses SQL for Coins, Says Skeptic
The MPI revealed cited three reasons underlining the forgery of the documents, claiming:
The ‘license’ documents aren’t in accordance with the regulations for administrative documents or regulations of Vietnamese authorities.
The signature of DOM’s deputy director was credited to a position that he does not hold, and
The signature and the seal of the deputy director and the ministry have both been copied and are hence fake.
The move by Vietnamese government to speak out against OneCoin joins a long list of national authorities in Belgium, the United Kingdom and Uganda, among others. To Vietnam’s west, India has been engaging in an ongoing crackdown of OneCoin operations in the country, with multiple arrests and seizures of cash in recent months. Indian police are currently on the lookout for six OneCoin promoters.