Irina Dilkinska, who reportedly served as “Head of Authorized and Compliance” for the supposed crypto challenge, pleaded responsible to expenses of wire fraud and cash laundering on Nov. 9 in a Manhattan federal courtroom.
The announcement was made by U.S. Lawyer for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams.
OneCoin, based in 2014 by Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, operated as a worldwide multi-level-marketing (MLM) community based mostly in Sofia, Bulgaria. The cryptocurrency claimed to supply profitable yields based mostly on the quantity of tokens customers held on a phony platform.
OneCoin managed to dupe tens of millions of individuals worldwide, with victims investing over $4 billion within the fraudulent scheme.
Head of authorized and compliance
Dilkinska’s responsible plea reveals her complicity in facilitating the laundering of tens of millions of {dollars} in illicit income accrued via OneCoin’s MLM construction.
Regardless of her function as “Head of Authorized and Compliance,” Dilkinska actively participated within the day-to-day operations of OneCoin, together with orchestrating the switch of $110 million in fraudulently obtained proceeds to a Cayman Islands entity.
Williams commented:
“As OneCoin’s so-called ‘Head of Authorized and Compliance,’ Irina Dilkinska completed the precise reverse aim of her place. The devoted prosecutors of this Workplace and our regulation enforcement companions will proceed to pursue this essential case till each defendant is delivered to justice.”
Dilkinska pleaded responsible to 1 depend of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one depend of conspiracy to commit cash laundering. The utmost potential sentence for these expenses is 5 years in jail every.
Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 14, 2024.
Crypto Queen stays at giant
The allegations towards OneCoin element a pyramid scheme that attracted over three million buyers worldwide between 2014 and 2016.
Throughout these years, OneCoin reported gross sales income of €4.037 billion and earned “income” of €2.735 billion. The scheme was ultimately shut down after droves of victims started reporting the challenge to native authorities, and a number of governments stepped in to close down OneCoin’s operations.
Ignatova, the self-proclaimed “Crypto Queen,” had already vanished earlier than she was charged with fraud and cash laundering by U.S. authorities in 2017 and stays at giant. Her whereabouts are unknown.
Media studies in 2022 claimed that Ignatova might have been assassinated off the coast of Greece by a Bulgarian drug lord who was additionally concerned with the challenge behind the scenes. Nevertheless, the claims have been by no means substantiated as a result of questionable veracity of the proof within the case.
The FBI continues to hunt details about the whereabouts of Ignatova, who’s on the High Ten Most Wished Checklist, with a $100,000 reward for data resulting in her arrest.
