The US Department of Justice has established a $40 million compensation fund for victims of the $4 billion OneCoin fraud scheme, which can now be accessed by those affected. The scheme, which operated between 2014 and 2019, was led by Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, and involved the sale of a fraudulent cryptocurrency through a global multi-level marketing network. Approximately 3.4 million investors worldwide were defrauded, with total losses exceeding $4 billion. The scheme, described by the DOJ as 'one of the largest global fraud schemes in history', was found to have manipulated the perceived value of OneCoin through the automatic generation of new coins, and ultimately collapsed in 2017.
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 for the Southern District of New York, 'OneCoin's founders sold a lie disguised as cryptocurrency, costing victims more than $4 billion worldwide'. The DOJ has stated that it will continue to work 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 Chapter 11 plan, with previous rounds totaling over $6 billion in an effort to recover assets for users of the collapsed crypto trading platform.