US authorities have announced charges against a former Onecoin executive for her alleged role in the notorious crypto pyramid scheme. Bulgarian national Irina Dilkinska, who was extradited on Monday, may face up to four decades in prison if she is found guilty on fraud and money laundering charges.
Bulgarian woman handed over to US to face Onecoin-related charges
Judicial and law enforcement officials in the US have filed charges against a 41-year-old woman in connection with her involvement in a coin, one of the biggest scams in the history of cryptocurrencies. Irina Dilkinska was extradited from Bulgaria, where she was based in the massive crypto Ponzi scheme.
Established in 2014, Onecoin offered investors a fake cryptocurrency of the same name, billed as “the Bitcoin killer” at one point, through a global multi-level marketing network. According to Onecoin’s own materials, more than 3 million people invested more than $4 billion in the alleged crypto at the end of 2016.
Dilkinska was the purported head of legal and compliance affairs for Onecoin, according to a advertisement released by the US Department of Justice on Tuesday. Authorities say the woman actually achieved the exact opposite of her job title.
She is accused of allowing Onecoin to launder millions of US dollars through shell companies. “As alleged in the charges unsealed today, Dilkinska assisted her co-conspirator, Mark Scott, in laundering approximately $400 million in Onecoin proceeds,” FBI Deputy Director Michael J. Driscoll noted.
The companies created by the Bulgarian citizen were also used to hold properties on behalf of Onecoin founder and mastermind Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian-born German citizen. The latter was last seen boarding an Athens-bound flight in Sofia, on October 25, 2017.
Pyramid founder ‘Cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova still wanted
Nicknamed “the missing Cryptoqueen,” Ignatova disappeared less than two weeks after she was indicted for fraud and money laundering in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. She is still wanted by Interpol, Europol and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and a recent Bulgarian media report suggests that she may have been murdered in 2018.
Irina Dilkinska has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each carries a potential maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
She is accused of burning incriminating documents after Scott’s arrest in 2018, about which she texted Ruja’s brother, Konstantin. Ignatov was arrested 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 national Karl Sebastian Greenwood, pleaded guilty in December 2022. Last month, a report revealed that Ruja’s ex-boyfriend, Gilbert Armenta, was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the money laundering. of the crypto pyramid.
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