Head of legal and compliance for multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency pyramid scheme OneCoin sentenced to four years in prison

Date: April 3, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that Irina Dilkinska was sentenced to four years in prison by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos for her role in the massive OneCoin fraud scheme. 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 in the fraudulent cryptocurrency. Dilkinska previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: "Irina Dilkinska's involvement in the sprawling OneCoin pyramid scheme was a flagrant breach of conduct. Rather than upholding the law and embracing her position as the head of legal and compliance, she facilitated and committed money laundering, aiding in the exploitation of millions of victims. as Dilkinska learned today, this office will hold accountable every perpetrator of the OneCoin scheme, no matter where they may hide."

According to the allegations in the superseding information and other filings and statements made in court:

In 2014, Ruja Ignatova, a/k/a "the Cryptoqueen," and Karl Sebastian Greenwood co-founded OneCoin^[1], a company based in Sofia, Bulgaria, that marketed a purported cryptocurrency by the same name, which was in fact a fraudulent pyramid scheme. OneCoin operated as a MLM network through which members received commissions for recruiting others to purchase cryptocurrency packages. This MLM structure influenced rapid growth of the OneCoin member network. According to OneCoin's promotional materials, over three million people invested in fraudulent cryptocurrency packages. OneCoin records show that between the fourth quarter of 2014 and the fourth quarter of 2016 alone, OneCoin generated €4.037 billion in sales revenue and earned "profits" of €2.735 billion.

Dilkinska was the purported head of legal and compliance for OneCoin. But rather than ensuring that OneCoin complied with the law, Dilkinksa 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.

In addition to the prison term, Dilkinska, a citizen of Bulgaria, was sentenced to one month of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $111,440,000.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The case is being prosecuted by the Office's Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas Folly, Juliana Murray, and Kevin Mead are in charge of the prosecution.

CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.

^[1]OneCoin has operated using several corporate entities and d/b/a names, including "OneCoin Ltd.," "OnePayments Ltd.," "OneNetwork Services Ltd.," "OneAcademy," and "OneLife." These entities and d/b/a names are referred to collectively here as OneCoin.

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