A Bulgarian woman extradited to the United States for her role in a $4 billion crypto pyramid scheme adds to a growing list of law enforcement actions against perpetrators of the OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
Irina Dilkinska, 41, was head of “legal and compliance” for OneCoin, but “accomplished the exact opposite of her job title and allegedly enabled OneCoin to launder millions of dollars of illegal proceeds through shell companies,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said.
OneCoin, which began operations in 2014 and was based in Sofia, Bulgaria, marketed and sold a fraudulent cryptocurrency by the same name through a global multi-level-marketing (“MLM”) network. As a result of misrepresentations made about OneCoin, victims invested over $4 billion worldwide in the fraudulent cryptocurrency.
The mastermind and also the co-founder of the Ponzi scheme, Ruja Ignatova, also known as “Cryptoqueen” has been on the run for more than half a decade, and also the most wanted in the lists of Europol and the FBI.
Furthermore, Ignatova’s brother, who is also a OneCoin co-founder, Konstantin Ignatov, pleaded guilty to the money laundering and fraud charges after his arrest in 2019.
However, Dilkinska faces a maximum prison sentence of 40 years if convicted on the charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.