More than a decade after the OneCoin scam was initiated, victims of the $4 billion cryptocurrency fraud scheme are now eligible to seek 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 deceived up to 3.4 million investors worldwide, according to the DOJ.
The scheme, which was based in Sofia, Bulgaria, involved marketing and selling a fraudulent cryptocurrency through a global multi-level marketing network. Investors from around the globe lost over $4 billion in the fraudulent cryptocurrency, which was promoted by a network of promoters offering purported tokens in exchange for investments, but did not actually involve any cryptocurrencies or exist on any blockchain. The ponzi 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 OneCoin's perceived value 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.' Clayton also stated that the DOJ will continue to seize criminal proceeds and prioritize returning funds to the victims.
The compensation process for OneCoin victims comes approximately four weeks after the FTX Recovery Trust announced plans to distribute $2.2 billion to creditors in its fourth payout under the exchange's Chapter 11 plan, with earlier rounds totaling over $6 billion as part of efforts to recover assets for users of the former prominent crypto trading platform, which collapsed in November 2022 and triggered a steep crypto bear market.