A Bulgarian woman extradited to the U.S. last year will serve four years in federal prison and forfeit more than $100 million after pleading guilty for her role in the multibillion-dollar OneCoin cryptocurrency scheme.
Irina Dilkinska, 42, assisted in day-to-day operations of OneCoin, which sold a fraudulent cryptocurrency by the same name through a multi-level marketing (MLM) network, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday. From 2014 onward, OneCoin duped victims out of at least $4 billion, according to the U.S. government.
As the purported “head of legal and compliance” for OneCoin, Dilkinska “laundered money for OneCoin, including arranging for the transfer of $110 million in fraudulently obtained OneCoin proceeds to a Cayman Islands entity,” prosecutors said.
Dilkinska had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. She was ordered to forfeit $111,440,000, prosecutors said.
OneCoin co-founder Ruja Ignatova, aka the “Crypto Queen,” marketed the digital currency as the next bitcoin at events around the world. She remains at large and is one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives. Germany has also issued a Red Notice for her arrest through Interpol.
Ignatova’s partner in the operation, Karl Sebastian Greenwood, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in September for helping to orchestrate the scheme. At the time, prosecutors said OneCoin was conceived “as a fraud from day one.”
Earlier this year, lawyer Mark Scott received a 10-year prison sentence for laundering more than $400 million in OneCoin proceeds.
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