A U.S. court has sentenced Onecoin’s purported head of legal and compliance to four years in prison. She “facilitated and committed money laundering, aiding in the exploitation of millions of victims,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. The Onecoin legal chief was also ordered to forfeit $111,440,000.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced Wednesday that Onecoin’s head of legal and compliance, Irina Dilkinska, has been sentenced to four years in prison for her role in the cryptocurrency fraud scheme.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams commented:
Irina Dilkinska’s involvement in the sprawling Onecoin pyramid scheme was a flagrant breach of conduct … she facilitated and committed money laundering, aiding in the exploitation of millions of victims.
“Dilkinska was the purported head of legal and compliance for Onecoin,” the Attorney’s Office described, adding that she “previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.”
Noting that she “assisted in running its day-to-day operations and laundered money for Onecoin, including arranging for the transfer of $110 million in fraudulently obtained Onecoin proceeds to a Cayman Islands entity,” the announcement adds: “As a result of misrepresentations made about Onecoin, victims invested over $4 billion in the fraudulent cryptocurrency.”
Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood co-founded Onecoin in 2014. The company based in Sofia, Bulgaria, marketed a purported cryptocurrency “which was in fact a fraudulent pyramid scheme,” court documents show. Onecoin’s promotional materials show that over three million people invested in the fraudulent crypto scheme, which generated €4.037 billion ($4.38 billion) in sales revenue and earned “profits” of €2.735 billion between the fourth quarter of 2014 and the fourth quarter of 2016.
Moreover, the Attorney’s Office detailed:
In addition to the prison term, Dilkinska, 42, a citizen of Bulgaria, was sentenced to one month of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $111,440,000.
Following U.S. fraud and money laundering charges against Onecoin founder Ignatova in October 2017, several insiders from the company have faced jail time. In September 2023, for instance, co-founder Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in U.S. prison.