She was extradited from Bulgaria on Monday on charges that she laundered hundreds of millions of dollars for the $4 billion pyramid fraud.
Listen to the CoinMarketRecap podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts
The head of compliance for the massive OneCoin pyramid scheme has been arrested in New York and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Irina Dilkinska was extradited from Bulgaria on March 20 for her alleged part in the massive crypto fraud, according to Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
While $4 billion is the most-cited number for the amount victims lost, other estimates run as high as $15 billion.
The OneCoin pyramid scheme began in 2014 with a token that was supposed to be a bigger and better version of Bitcoin. Two years later, OneCoin was the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market capitalization and its supporters were able to fill London's 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium.
But the token was never tradable outside of its own closed system, and was distributed largely using multi-level marketing tactics in which members earned commissions for recruiting others to buy packages of OneCoin. Williams said:
"Irina Dilkinska, the supposed Head of Legal and Compliance for the OneCoin cryptocurrency pyramid scheme, accomplished the exact opposite of her job title and allegedly enabled OneCoin to launder millions of dollars of illegal proceeds through shell companies. Dilkinska helped perpetuate a wide-ranging scheme with millions of victims and billions of dollars in losses, and she will now face justice for her alleged crimes."
The news comes just weeks after another alleged OneCoin scammer, CEO Ruja Ignatova, was reported to have been murdered in 2018 on an alleged drug kingpin's yacht off Bulgaria. As the death of Ignatova — once known as the "Cryptoqueen" — has not been confirmed, she remains on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list.
Big Laundry
According to the indictment, Dilkinska helped attorney Mark Scott as the pair allegedly laundered $400 million in ill-gotten gains through a number of shell companies
Among these was B&N Consult EEOD, which claimed to have generated $215 million (€200 million) in 2015 and 2016 by providing "proprietary consulting services, support and software solutions" to clients.
In reality, prosecutors alleged its purpose was "to disguise the transfer of millions of dollars as purported 'investments' into Scott's funds."
When Dilkinska learned that Scott had been arrested, she burned incriminating documents and sent co-conspirators "incriminating messages," FBI Assistant Director Michael Driscoll said.
The maximum sentence for the charges Dilkinska is facing if convicted is 40 years in prison.
