Two Singaporean directors of separate companies have been charged in a Singapore court for promoting a multi-level marketing scheme using a suspicious digital currency called OneCoin.

The police said in a statement (Apr 10) that the case is the first of its kind in Singapore. In particular, Lim Young Fook of local interior design company One Concept Pte Ltd has been charged with two offenses under the Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling (Prohibition) Act. Fok Fook Seng, a director of several local firms, is accused of one violation under the same act.

Between 2015 and 2017, the pair had supposedly promoted an initiative known as the “OneLife Network Global Compensation Plan”, where people were asked to buy online educational courses bundled with “promotional tokens”. These tokens could be used in turn to mine OneCoin, which bears some similarities to Bitcoin. Participants who brought in others to join the scheme also received commissions.

Lim was offered bail at SGD 60,000 (USD 44,200), while Fok’s was set at SGD 30,000 (USD 22,100). They are due back in court on May 8. They face five years in prison, and a maximum fine of SGD 200,000 (USD 147,500) if convicted.

Singapore media noted that the court did not reveal further details on the scheme or the number of people affected and cash amounts involved. Both OneCoin and One Concept Pte Ltd are on local financial regulator the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Investor Alert List.

OneCoin is widely seen internationally as a Ponzi scam. It has been labeled as a fraudulent cryptocurrency by the US government, which has also earlier this month charged its leaders, siblings Konstantin Ignatov and Ruja Ignatova, for defrauding billions from investors, reported The Crypto Sight.

China, India, Germany, Bulgaria, and Samoa are just some of the many countries that have cracked down on OneCoin in recent years apart from it also being on the alert list of many others.