OneCoin victims get a $40 million lifeline more than a decade after the scam began

The Department of Justice said it has $40 cardinal successful seized assets for unfortunate compensation and it volition proceed moving to prehend further transgression proceeds for the defrauded investors

Apr 14, 2026, 11:17 a.m.

Victims of the OneCoin $4 cardinal fraud strategy tin present seek compensation done a $40 cardinal money of seized assets, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced connected Monday.

Between 2014 and 2019, Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founders of OneCoin Ltd. (OneCoin), and others operated an planetary cryptocurrency concern strategy defrauding up to 3.4 cardinal investors from astir the globe, the DOJ said.

The Sofia, Bulgaria-based cognition marketed and sold a fraudulent crypto by the aforesaid sanction done a planetary multi-level-marketing (MLM) network.

Victims worldwide invested implicit $4 cardinal worldwide successful the fraudulent cryptocurrency which operated done a web of promoters, who solicited investments successful instrumentality for purported tokens, but notably did not really impact immoderate cryptocurrencies nor did OneCoin beryllium connected immoderate blockchain.

The ponzi scheme, which the DOJ called “one of the largest planetary fraud schemes successful history”, collapsed successful 2017, aft Ignatova and her squad were recovered to person manipulated OneCoin’s perceived worth done the automatic procreation of caller coins.

In June 2024, the DOJ offered a caller $5 million reward for the missing Cryptqueen. Greenwood, who allegedly called the investors “idiots”, admitted to national ligament fraud and wealth laundering charges successful 2022.

“OneCoin’s founders sold a prevarication disguised arsenic cryptocurrency, costing victims much than $4 cardinal worldwide,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. He besides said the DOJ would proceed moving to prehend transgression proceeds and prioritize getting wealth backmost into the hands of victims.

The compensation process for OneCoin comes astir 4 weeks aft the FTX Recovery Trust announced it would administer $2.2 cardinal to creditors successful its 4th payout nether the exchange’s Chapter 11 plan. Earlier rounds totalled much than $6 cardinal arsenic portion of a process aimed astatine recovering assets for users of the once-prominent crypto trading platform, which collapsed successful November 2022, triggering a steep crypto carnivore market.