Co-founder of OneCoin Irina Dilkinska is being extradited to the US after her arrest last week.
The Bulgarian was an accomplice to Ruja Ignatova, the notorious founder of the OneCoin project, who has been missing since 2019.
The project is alleged to have been a pyramid scheme that defrauded consumers out of more than $4bn.
Dilkinska will face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in the US, as confirmed by Department of Justice (DoJ) US attorney Damien Williams.
Dilkinska was supposedly the head of legal and compliance at OneCoin, which makes her central to the inner workings of the company.
The DoJ suspects that Dilkinska knowingly and purposefully helped launder millions of dollars of ill-gotten gains.
OneCoin originally launched in 2014 and successfully defrauded hundreds of thousands of people. Ignatova herself was dubbed “the Cryptoqueen” but she hasn’t been seen since 2019.
In 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation listed her as one of its Top Ten Most Wanted and offered a $100,000 award.
Ignatova, though, may have been killed according to Bird.bg, a hard-hitting investigative Bulgarian media outlet that has exposed government fraud and corruption for more than 10 years now.
Bird.bg also alleged that Ignatova was well-connected with the police in Bulgaria, allowing her to come and go as she pleased from the country and to get an early warning on when she was likely to be arrested in other countries.
Ignatova was supposedly killed on a yacht on the Mediterranean, according to journalists Dimitar Stoyanov and Atanas Tchobanov.
Looking for your next crypto casino? Check out: Bitcasino or FortuneJack.