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Kate Winslet will star in Fake!, a movie about the fraudulent exchange OneCoin

Photo of: Joseph Stone
by Joseph Stone

British star Kate Winslet is said to have joined the cast of Fake! a film in development that is set to tell the story of the OneCoin crypto-ponzi system that has swindled investors around the world out of billions of dollars.

Directed and written by Scott Z. Burns, who wrote the screenplay for The Laundromat, the 2019 film about the Panama Paper Scandal, the upcoming film will be based on the as yet unpublished book by Jen McAdam and Douglas Thompson himself based on McAdam’s true story of his involvement in the system, as reported by Deadline.

McAdam was one of the victims of the Ponzi scheme, and has set up a support group for those defrauded by this scam. He and his friends and family invested approximately $300,000 in the fake cryptocurrencies created by the offshore companies OneCoin Ltd and OneLife Network Ltd, based in Bulgaria and registered in Dubai and Belize respectively.

As part of the OneCoin scam, investors around the world were promised guaranteed returns of up to 300%.

Estimates of losses generated by the international Ponzi scheme vary. According to U.S. prosecutors, the OneCoin scam could be worth as much as $4 billion. Last year, Fortune magazine speculated that OneCoin may have reaped more than the $19.4 billion that Bernie Maddoff collected from his victims through 2008.

The film is expected to be produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Winslet will also be one of the producers. The Oscar-winning actress became internationally known after appearing in James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic, in which she was accompanied by Leonardo DiCaprio. Burns and Winslet have already collaborated on the film Contagion, directed in 2011 by Steven Soderbergh.

This movie should potentially open a broader general discussion around crypto adoption but also the risks associated with the crypto industry. If it educates the general public about the risks and rewards around crypto currencies and exchanges, it is certainly favorable to the industry as a whole.