Co-founder of the OmegaPro Ponzi, Andreas Szakacs has been arrested in Turkey.
OmegaPro was a multi-level marketing (MLM) cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that promised a 200% return on investment over a span of 16 months.
After OmegaPro’s downfall in November 2022, its Dubai-based co-founders, Andreas Szakacs and Dilawar Singh, have disappeared. Szakacs, possessing forged credentials, seems to have moved from Dubai to Turkey, adopting the alias “Emre Avci.” He was apprehended on charges of “financial cheating” on July 10th, 2024.
Szakacs is currently in Maltepe prison- a municipal district of Istanbul, south-east of the capital city.
It is unclear whether Singh is in custody. However, it is certain that Singh deactivated his social media accounts around the time of Szakacs’ arrest.
Le Journal de Montreal reported a French criminal investigation into OmegaPro last month.
“The Central Office for the Suppression of Serious Financial Crime has been tasked […] with carrying out checks, in order to establish whether French jurisdiction can be retained or whether it will be appropriate to make an official report to the English authorities,” the public prosecutor’s office said.
In February, it was reported that 2000 victims of OmegaPro in France filed a criminal complaint. However, unless the French authorities have not taken quick action for Szakacs’s arrest.
OmegaPro strategically avoided targeting the US market, and rather attracted victims from developing countries. Yet, OmegaPro’s link withthe US is evident through its third co-founder, Mike Sims.
Along with profiting from the scheme and managing money laundering operations, Sims also acted as the connection between OmegaPro and the now-defunct The Trader’s Domain, a non-MLM Ponzi scheme.
The collapse of The Trader’s Domain happened several months before OmegaPro’s downfall. It has been suspected that the failures of these two Ponzi schemes were related.
In February 2023, the CFTC initiated legal action against the ringleaders of The Trader’s Domain, which includes Sims. However, no criminal charges have been publicly disclosed as of now.
Several residents of the US participated in The Trader’s Domain, with Holton Buggs allegedly embezzling over $125 million, while Sims is estimated to have taken around $84 million.
Another prominent recipient of ill-gotten profit was the infamous MLM trainer Eric Worre and his wife Marina. The couple have defrauded victims of The Traders Domain out of more than $21 million.
Worre also became involved with the OmegaPro a few month prior to its downfall.
Turkey where Andreas Szakacs is hiding; has recently emerged as a haven for “international criminal networks”.
Lax laws on money laundering, easy access to citizenship, insufficient prosecution — Turkey has grown more attractive for international criminal networks. In response, the new interior minister has declared a crackdown.
In April 2024 Europol cited Turkey as “a hub for significant criminal syndicates, posing a serious threat to the safety and security of Europe”.
Numerous key figures in criminal networks, based primarily in Belgium and the Netherlands, engage in trafficking cocaine and cannabis, along with money laundering, with many having Turkish origins.
“They are present in more than 40 countries, with main operations in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain in the EU, and the United Arab Emirates outside the EU,” the report said.
“Turkish key members often form the core of criminal networks with Belgian, Dutch and German criminals. These networks engage mainly in drug trafficking (cocaine and cannabis) and money laundering.
Main countries of activity include Belgium, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Türkiye.
Szakacs, who was also a former promoter of OneCoin, promoted the $4 billion plus Ponzi scheme across Turkey.
Two Russian crime syndicates based in Turkey are involved in scams, including Cancri Jewelry and a range of MLM cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes led by Canadian national Jan Gregory in 2023 (such as CoinMarketBull, Maxspread Technologies, Vortic United, CloudFi, and SureX).
