August 21, 2020
The firm Phoenix Thoroughbred was reported last week that they were banned from horse racing in France over the founder’s alleged involvement with the crypto Ponzi scheme Onecoin. During November in the past year, Onecoin cofounder Konstantin Ignatov, the Cryptoqueen’s brother, told New York prosecutors that Phoenix Thoroughbreds owner Amer Abdulaziz Salman was one of the “money-cleaners under the guidance of Gilbert Armenta.”
The excessive Onecoin scandal continues after the news. Recent reports stated the unsealed indictment of an alleged Onecoin co-conspirator, Gilbert Armenta. Armenta was allegedly Ruja Ignatova’s (Cryptoqueen) former boyfriend, who presumably helped Onecoin leaders launder millions of dollars.
A part of Onecoin funds may have been funneled into the thoroughbred racehorse industry, as stated to Konstantin Ignatov’s testimony last fall.
A recent podcast uncovered some exciting findings next to the opened document for Gilbert Armenta and his sentencing date for October 21, 2020. It showed how an Onecoin law firm and status management company allegedly got the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to take down an Onecoin warning.
Now, all eyes are on Amer Abdulaziz Salman and his racehorse company Phoenix Thoroughbreds. This is due to the information that last week several horse racing news channels reported on France Galop officials eradicating two Phoenix Thoroughbreds race entries from the Prix de la Vallee d’Auge at Deauville.
Seemingly the ban is due to accusations concerning the source of Phoenix’s funding. It was reported that Salman’s alleged involvement with Onecoin in December 2019.
At the end of 2019, during Konstantin Ignatov’s testimony, an investigative journalist, Matthew Russell Lee, reported on Konstantin Ignatov’s declarations under oath. Lee also discussed the ostensible Phoenix Thoroughbreds’ commitment with Onecoin via statements from the former attorney Mark Scott. The reporter recorded Mark Scott’s post-arrest statements last November.
“All the money that was not invested,” Scott said. “[It] was at the direction of the investors, sent to, umm, another, umm, another financial advisor in Dubai. We have nothing to do anymore… We signed an agreement, the first agreement at the behest of the investors is called Phoenix something Investment Fund, I think just Phoenix.”
Lee also recorded Konstantin Ignatov’s statements under oath in a sequence of tweets on November 6, 2019. Additionally, Ignatov’s testimony was also distributed in great detail, and both accounts involved the Phoenix Thoroughbreds owner Amer Abdulaziz Salman.
Ignatov stated to the court that Salman was “a key figure in a major money-laundering operation”, and he also told a story about Salman purchasing “racehorses for, like, €25 million.” Thoroughbred racehorses can sell for hundreds of thousands and often millions for top breeds.
It also reported last December that Salman and Phoenix Thoroughbreds downright denies all of the allegations curtailing from Ignatov’s testimony.
“Phoenix Fund Investments LLC categorically denies all allegations made against it, and its owner, Mr. Amer Abdulaziz, in legal proceedings against Onecoin and its conspirators in the U.S.,” the company’s website records.
However, a racingpost.com author Tom Kerr says Phoenix has a lot of questions to answer. “[Phoenix] never offered an explanation for Ignatov’s comments or directly addressed the €185m that is alleged to have been transferred by a convicted money launderer to Phoenix Fund Investments,” Kerr wrote recently. They also claimed that they acquired video footage of Phoenix’s ostensible participation with Onecoin management.
“[Racingpost.com] obtained video and social media evidence that demonstrates Onecoin operated an office in Dubai’s Phoenix Business Center, another company of Abdulaziz’s, over a period from late 2017 to early 2018,” Kerr reports.
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