Shell Firm That Laundered Millions for Onecoin Registered in Roma Neighborhood

A company used to conceal the movement of Onecoin-related funds was transferred to a young Romani woman in Bulgaria, local media revealed. The report follows the extradition to the U.S. of the head of legal and compliance at the crypto pyramid scheme, accused of enabling Onecoin to launder millions of dollars through such entities.

Unsuspecting Woman Agreed to Have Company Linked to Onecoin Registered Under Her Name

On Monday, Bulgarian authorities handed over to U.S. custody Irina Dilkinska, former head of legal and compliance at Onecoin. The crypto Ponzi scheme, which raised over $4 billion from investors around the world, is believed to have moved millions of U.S. dollars through shell firms which Dilkinska allegedly helped to establish.

One of these companies, B&N Consult, generated €200 million ($217 million at current rates) in 2015 and 2016, according to the Tuesday announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice about her extradition to the United States, where she is now facing charges of money laundering and fraud in connection with her role in the massive crypto pyramid.

During that period, Dilkinska was managing the firm which was supposed to offer “proprietary consulting services, support and software solutions,” while the DOJ says it was used to disguise the transfer of millions of dollars to fake investment funds operated by Mark Scott, a lawyer charged in the U.S. with helping Onecoin launder $400 million.

In 2017, Irina Dilkinska, now 41, left her executive post and transferred B&N Consult to Margarita Kaneva, a 27-year-old resident of the Roma neighborhood of the town of Etropole in Western Bulgaria, BTV unveiled in a report on Wednesday. The young woman claims she doesn’t know Dilkinska and has never heard about Onecoin or the money laundering allegations.

Speaking to the Bulgarian TV channel, Kaneva admitted that years ago she accepted 300 leva (less than $170 at the time of writing) to agree to have a company registered under her name. B&N Consult, the official address of which is now her own home in Etropole, is not the only entity that the young woman is legally responsible for.

Dilkinska Last Saw Ruja Ignatova 5 Years Ago, Lawyer Says

The extradition procedure for Dilkinska took almost two years. She was detained in June 2021 on a red notice from Interpol issued in late 2020. In an interview with another leading Bulgarian channel, Nova TV, her lawyer, Nikolay Petrov, said she was working for Onecoin four to five years at its office in Sofia, and last met with the pyramid’s mastermind Ruja Ignatova, who was often traveling, in 2016 – 2017.

Known as “the missing Cryptoqueen,” Ignatova was added to the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list last year. She is a Bulgarian-born German national, also of Romani origin, who founded Onecoin in 2014. The scam allegedly defrauded more than 3 million people around the world by late 2016, offering them to put money into a fake cryptocurrency by the same name. Ruja disappeared after boarding an Athens-bound flight in the Bulgarian capital, on Oct. 25, 2017.

In 2019, her brother and Onecoin co-founder, Konstantin Ignatov, was detained in the U.S. where he pleaded guilty to Onecoin-related charges and sought witness protection. Swedish and British national Karl Sebastian Greenwood, also a co-founder, pleaded guilty in December, 2022. Ruja Ignatova’s ex-boyfriend, Gilbert Armenta, was sentenced to five years in prison for laundering Onecoin proceeds.

Do you think more people involved in the crypto scam will be extradited to the U.S. to face Onecoin-related charges? Tell us in the comments section below.

Lubomir Tassev

Lubomir Tassev is a journalist from tech-savvy Eastern Europe who likes Hitchens’s quote: “Being a writer is what I am, rather than what I do.” Besides crypto, blockchain and fintech, international politics and economics are two other sources of inspiration.

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