A $40 million fund of seized assets is now available for victims of the $4 billion OneCoin fraud scheme to seek compensation, as announced by the US Department of Justice on Monday. The scheme, which operated from 2014 to 2019, was led by Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founders of OneCoin Ltd, and involved a global cryptocurrency investment scam that defrauded up to 3.4 million investors worldwide.
The operation, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, used a multi-level marketing network to sell a fraudulent cryptocurrency, with victims investing over $4 billion globally. The scheme, which did not involve actual cryptocurrencies or blockchain, collapsed in 2017 after it was discovered that OneCoin's value was being manipulated.
In 2022, Greenwood admitted to federal wire fraud and money laundering charges, and a $5 million reward was offered for the missing Cryptqueen in June 2024. According to US Attorney Jay Clayton, the founders of OneCoin sold a false promise disguised as cryptocurrency, resulting in losses of over $4 billion worldwide.
The DOJ will continue to work to seize criminal proceeds and prioritize returning money to the victims. This compensation process comes after the FTX Recovery Trust announced it would distribute $2.2 billion to creditors, as part of a larger effort to recover assets for users of the collapsed crypto trading platform.