OneCoin's former head of legal affairs, Bulgarian Irina Dilkinska, was sentenced to four years in prison for her role in a massive $4 billion cryptocurrency fraud scheme, Manhattan prosecutors said Wednesday. This was reported by euractiv.bg
U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos ordered 42-year-old Irina Dilkinska to forfeit more than $111 million. Dilkinska pleaded guilty in November to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
„Instead of upholding the law and taking her position as head of the legal department, she facilitated and conducted money laundering, helping to rob millions of victims,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damien Williams.
The indictment alleges that she helped create shell companies to launder money and keep assets belonging to the “crypto queen” Ruza Ignatova. Dilkinska helped lawyer and OneCoin co-conspirator Mark Scott launder $400 million. After his arrest, she destroyed incriminating information and notified another person involved of the arrest.
Dilkinska's attorney, John Buza, said in an email that his client “looks forward to putting this tragic saga in her life behind her so she can return to her family”.
In March 2023, it was reported that a Bulgarian woman named Irina Dilkinska had been extradited to the US and charged in connection with the OneCoin crypto scam.
Dilkinska managed the day-to-day operations of OneCoin, which is a Bulgaria-based company. The company started operating in 2014 and is based in Sofia. It offers a fraudulent cryptocurrency of the same name through a global multi-level marketing (“MLM“) network. Victims of the scheme were tricked into investing over $4 billion.
Dilkinska is a Bulgarian lawyer and studied law in both Russia and the UK. She arranged to transfer $110 million in ill-gotten gains to an organization in the Cayman Islands, prosecutors said.
Other individuals associated with OneCoin have been sentenced to prison. In January, Mark Scott, a former partner at US law firm Locke Lord, was sentenced to 10 years for laundering nearly $400 million in OneCoin proceeds.
The co-founder of the OneCoin scheme, Carl Sebastian Greenwood, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and had $300 million forfeited in September.
The other co-founder of the scheme, Ruzha Ignatova, also known as the “Crypto Queen”, was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List in 2022. She is still at large