OneCoin’s legal chief receives a four-year jail term for a massive $4 billion cryptocurrency scam. The judge who delivered Irina Dilkinska’s sentence described her as “a woman of great intelligence and someone who should have known better.” Dilkinska, former head of legal and compliance for the multibillion-dollar OneCoin fraud, admitted to aiding in money laundering, leading to her four-year imprisonment under United States District Judge Edgardo Ramos on Wednesday, as per a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on April 3.
Alongside her jail time, Dilkinska was also given one month of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $111 million as restitution. Despite Dilkinska’s plea to avoid jail to care for her young children in Bulgaria, Ramos denied her request, highlighting that she was fully aware of the legal consequences of her involvement in the $4-billion Ponzi scheme.
Dilkinska had pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges in a Manhattan federal court on Nov. 10. Each charge carried a maximum sentence of up to five years, potentially leading to a 10-year imprisonment. Dilkinska is the latest in a series of OneCoin executives to face prison time for their roles in the fraudulent scheme.
Co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Sept. 12 last year for fraud and money laundering charges, ordered to pay $300 million in restitution. OneCoin, founded by “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova and Greenwood in 2014, promised guaranteed returns to investors through a fake cryptocurrency called “OneCoin.” The company, however, operated as a pyramid scheme, without a functioning blockchain, making money by paying commissions to investors for bringing in new buyers.
Ignatova remains missing since October 2017, following a federal warrant for her arrest. OneCoin was exposed as fraudulent in 2015 but managed to generate over $4.3 billion in revenue, recording nearly $3 billion in profits between 2014 and 2016.
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