United States District Judge Edgardo Ramos issued Irina Dilkinska a four-year prison sentence. Dilkinska was the head of legal and compliance for the prominent OneCoin Ponzi scam.
The U.S. Attorney’s office revealed the sentence on April 3. Dilkinska admitted that the fake cryptocurrency business helped launder millions of dollars.
Along with her prison term, Dilkinska, 42, has to do one month of supervised release and give back $111 million as part of her punishment for theft. Even though she requested to escape jail time in Bulgaria for child care duties, Judge Ramos turned down her request, pointing out how smart she was and how effectively she understood the scheme’s legal implications.
OneCoin Executive Sentencing Details
Dilkinska pleaded guilty last November in a federal court in Manhattan to charges of wire fraud and laundering funds. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years, so she could spend up to ten years in prison.
This makes her the second OneCoin executive to go to jail. The first was Karl Sebastian Greenwood, who helped create the scheme and got 20 years in September 2023.
OneCoin was started in 2014 by Ruja Ignatova, also known as Cryptoqueen, and Greenwood. Its fake coin promised investors significant profits. Later, investigations found that OneCoin did not have a valid blockchain, which showed that it was a pyramid scheme that required new buyers to stay viable.
Even though it was discovered to be a scam in 2015, OneCoin made more than $4.3 billion in sales and almost $3 billion in earnings from 2014 to 2016. Ignatova has not been seen since October 2017, when a federal warrant for her arrest was issued.
Disappearance has led to further rumors about her whereabouts as several OneCoin employees were killed in Mexico in 2020.
