Episode 88: How a young Ugandan brought down the Ponzi schemer who stole from the poor

~ Edwin Okong'o

When Daniel Leinhardt and his family lost all their savings to an international cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, he decided to go after the Ugandan director of OneCoin scam. He speaks about the scheme that derailed his university education, and how he was pleasantly shocked when Ugandan authorities arrested John Mwangutsya.

Mwangutsya was Uganda’s director of OneCoin, a cryptocurrecy multilevel marketing scheme that defrauded people around the world of $4 billion. OneCoin was founded by Bulgarian-born Ruja Iganatova, who vanished in 2017 when it became apparent that she was defrauding people.

Published by Edwin Okong'o

Edwin Okong’o is not your typical, stereotypical African. He is a storyteller by any medium necessary™. Okong'o is an award-winning journalist, humorist, satirist and memoirist. He received his master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied radio, newspaper, magazine, and online multimedia storytelling and editing. Okong’o’s journalistic work, provocative commentaries, and stand-up comedy performances have appeared in numerous media across the world. He is the winner of several honors, including a Webby Award for his short documentary, "Kenya: Sweet Home, Obama", which he made for the PBS program, Frontline.