A top-level OneCoin executive is pleading guilty to accusations arising from her alleged participation in the multi-level marketing (MLM) scam that swindled over $4 billion from victims worldwide.
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says that Bulgarian citizen and OneCoin head of legal compliance Irina Dilkinska has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday.
The 42-year-old faces a potential sentence of up to five years in prison for each charge.
OneCoin, co-founded by the so-called crypto queen Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood in 2014, engaged in a fraudulent pyramid scheme that promised to pay members to recruit people to purchase cryptocurrency packages.
The prosecution alleges that instead of ensuring that OneCoin complied with the law, Dilkinska helped launder money for the company, which included transferring $110 million in fraudulent proceeds to a Cayman Island entity.
Says Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York,
“As OneCoin’s so-called ‘Head of Legal and Compliance’ Irina Dilkinska accomplished the exact opposite goal of her position. As she has now admitted, Dilkinska facilitated the laundering of millions of dollars of illicit profits OneCoin accrued through its multi-level marketing scheme. The dedicated prosecutors of this Office and our law enforcement partners will continue to pursue this important case until every defendant is brought to justice.”
U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos, who accepted the guilty plea, is set to issue the sentence on February 14th next year.
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