U.S. authorities have announced charges against a former Onecoin executive for her alleged involvement in the notorious crypto pyramid scheme. Irina Dilkinska, a Bulgarian national extradited Monday, could face up to 40 years in prison if found guilty of fraud and money laundering.
Bulgarian woman extradited to the U.S. to face charges related to Onecoin
U.S. law enforcement and judicial authorities have charged a 41-year-old woman in connection with her participation inOnecoin, one of the biggest scams in crypto history. Irina Dilkinska was extradited from Bulgaria, where this massive crypto Ponzi scheme was based
Onecoin, founded in 2014, was at one time branded a “Bitcoin Killer” through a global multi-level marketing network Offering investors a fake cryptocurrency of the same name that was branded “Bitcoin Killer,” Onecoin’s own data shows that by late 2016, more than 3 million people had invested more than $4 billion in this fake crypto.
According to aannouncementreleased Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice, Dyrkowska was considered Onecoin’s legal and compliance director. Authorities claim that in fact the woman accomplished the exact opposite of her job title.
She is accused of enabling Onecoin to launder millions of US dollars through shell companies.” As alleged in the charges unsealed today, Dilkinska helped her co-conspirator, Mark Scott, launder approximately $400 million in Onecoin proceeds,” noted FBI Assistant Director Michael J. Driscoll.
The Bulgarian-created company was also used to hold property on behalf of Onecoin founder and mastermind Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian-born German. The latter was last seen boarding a flight to Athens in Sofia on October 25, 2017.
Pyramid founder “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova is still wanted
Dubbed the “Missing Cryptoqueen,” Ignatova disappeared less than two weeks after being indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on fraud and money laundering charges. She remains wanted by Interpol, Europol, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and recent Bulgarian media reports indicate that she may have been murdered in 2018.
Irina Dilkinska is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
She is accused of burning incriminating documents after Scott was arrested in 2018, about which she sent an email to Ruja’s brother, Konstantin. Ignatov was detained in Los Angeles in 2019, pleaded guilty to Onecoin-related charges, and sought witness protection in the United States.
Another Onecoin co-founder, Swedish and British Karl Sebastian Greenwood, sued.
