The legal boss of OneCoin was sentenced to 4 years in prison for a massive fraud of 4 billion dollars
The former head of legal and compliance for the multibillion-dollar OneCoin fraud scheme has been sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to helping commit a multi-million dollar fraud.
Irina Dilkinska, 42, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos to four years in prison, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
In addition to four years in prison, Dilkinska was sentenced to one month in prison and ordered to pay $111 million in restitution.
Judge Ramos denied Dilkinska's request to avoid jail time and return home to care for the young children in Bulgaria, according to an April 3 report from Bloomberg.
Ramos Dilkinska said she was “a woman of great intelligence and should have known better” and was fully aware of the legal consequences of her actions while running a $4 billion Ponzi scheme.
“I don't understand what kept her from leaving before the point where the plan went down,” Ramos said.
Dilkinska pleaded guilty to racketeering and money laundering charges in Manhattan federal court on Nov. 10. Each count carries up to five years in prison, meaning Dilkinska could face up to 10 years in prison.
Dilkinson is the latest OneCoin executive to serve time in prison for his role in the fraud scheme.
On September 12 last year, the scheme's founder, Carl Sebastian Greenwood, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for fraud and money laundering and ordered to pay $300 million in restitution.
Related: Cryptoqueen's brother released after 3 years in prison for OneCoin scheme: Report
OneCoin was launched in 2015. Founded in 2014 by “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova and Greenwood, it promises to insure investors against a fake cryptocurrency called “OneCoin”.
However, it was later discovered that the company had never built a working blockchain and instead operated as a pyramid scheme, paying commissions to investors to sign up their funds with regular new buyers.
In the year After flying to Greece in October 2017, Ignatova has been missing since a federal warrant was issued for her arrest 15 days later. In the year Following the murders of several OneCoin affiliates in Mexico in 2020, some speculated that Ignatova was killed.
OneCoin was launched in 2015. Despite being exposed as a scam in 2015, it still managed to generate more than $4.3 billion in revenue, with a profit of nearly $3 billion between 2014 and 2016.
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