Gate News message, April 14 — Ben Pasternak, the 26-year-old Australian founder of Solana-based platform Believe, is facing indictment in New York federal court over an alleged rug pull scheme, while the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a compensation process for victims of the OneCoin fraud with over $40 million in forfeited assets now available.
Prosecutors allege that Pasternak’s platform, previously called Clout, engaged in a deceptive cycle of rug pulling by launching a series of tokens: $PASTERNAK, later rebranded as $LAUNCHCOIN, and then $BELIEVE. Civil lawsuits claim the platform processed over $6 billion in trades and extracted approximately $54 million in fees while investors suffered massive losses. The case is under review in the Southern District of New York.
The DOJ’s compensation program targets victims of OneCoin, a fraudulent cryptocurrency marketed as a “Bitcoin killer” that operated from Sofia, Bulgaria, between 2014 and 2019. The scheme defrauded an estimated 3.5 million people out of over $4 billion. Victims who purchased OneCoin during those years may file for compensation by the June 30, 2026 deadline.
OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while the other co-founder, Ruja Ignatova, known as the “Cryptoqueen,” remains on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list. Both cases are being handled by the Southern District of New York.
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