Irina Dilkinska, the former compliance director of OneCoin, a cryptocurrency scheme from 2015 that defrauded investors of $4 billion, has pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to charges of wire fraud and money laundering. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on November 10 that U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos accepted the guilty plea from the 42-year-old Dilkinska. She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each carrying a potential penalty of up to five years in prison.
Despite her role as OneCoin's compliance director, prosecutors revealed that Dilkinska played a significant role in the scheme's money laundering operations. She assisted in transferring $110 million in fraudulent proceeds to an entity based in the Cayman Islands. The guilty plea highlights the contradiction between Dilkinska's position as the "Head of Legal and Compliance" at OneCoin and her involvement in laundering millions of dollars in illicit profits generated by the cryptocurrency's multi-level marketing scheme.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams emphasized the irony of Dilkinska achieving "full compliance with her position's opposite goals." The sentencing for Dilkinska is scheduled for February 14, 2024, and she faces the possibility of up to 10 years in prison for her role in the OneCoin scheme. OneCoin, founded in 2014 by "Crypto Queen" Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, was exposed as fraudulent in 2015. Greenwood has already been sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of fraud and money laundering, along with a restitution order of $300 million.
Ruja Ignatova, however, remains at large and disappeared in October 2017, just 15 days after a federal arrest warrant was issued. Despite being exposed as a fraudulent scheme in 2015, OneCoin managed to generate over $4.3 billion in revenue and nearly $3 billion in profits between the fourth quarter of 2014 and the fourth quarter of 2016.
