More than a decade after the OneCoin scam began, victims of the $4 billion cryptocurrency fraud scheme are now eligible for compensation from a $40 million fund of seized assets, as announced by the US Department of Justice on Monday. Between 2014 and 2019, co-founders Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, along with others, operated a global cryptocurrency investment scheme that defrauded up to 3.4 million investors worldwide, according to the DOJ.
The scheme, which was based in Sofia, Bulgaria, and utilized a global multi-level-marketing network, marketed and sold a fraudulent cryptocurrency. Investors from around the world invested over $4 billion in the fake cryptocurrency, which was promoted by a network of solicitors who promised tokens in return for investments, but did not actually involve any real cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology. The scheme, described by the DOJ as 'one of the largest global fraud schemes in history', collapsed in 2017 after Ignatova and her team were found to have artificially inflated the perceived value of OneCoin by automatically generating new coins. In June 2024, the DOJ offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of the missing 'Cryptqueen'.
Greenwood, who allegedly referred to investors as 'idiots', pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud and money laundering charges in 2022. According to US Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, 'OneCoin's founders sold a false promise disguised as a cryptocurrency, resulting in losses of over $4 billion worldwide for victims.' The DOJ has stated that it will continue to seize criminal proceeds and prioritize returning funds to victims.
This development comes approximately four weeks after the FTX Recovery Trust announced its plans to distribute $2.2 billion to creditors as part of its fourth payout under the exchange's Chapter 11 plan, with previous rounds totaling over $6 billion as part of efforts to recover assets for users of the crypto trading platform, which collapsed in November 2022 and triggered a significant cryptocurrency market downturn.