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The U.S. Department of Justice has announced a compensation process for victims of OneCoin, the fake cryptocurrency scheme that defrauded investors of some $4 billion through a global multi-level-marketing network from 2014 to 2019.
Victims can now file petitions to claim their share of over $40 million in forfeited assets at onecoinremission.com, through a process administered by Kroll Settlement Administration LLC. The deadline for submissions is June 30.
“Victims are at the core of everything we do at the Department of Justice,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, in a press release. “As we did in this complex investment fraud case, the Department pursues forfeiture to take the profit out of crime and then use that money to compensate victims wherever possible.”
Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, called the announcement "an important step toward returning funds to those harmed," while James C. Barnacle Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI New York Field Office, noted the "monumental" victim losses, saying many "unknowingly depleted their savings for a fraudulent investment scheme in an emerging financial ecosystem that would never pay out."
The available compensation funds stem from successful prosecutions of OneCoin's leadership. Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founder of OneCoin, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023 for his role in orchestrating the fraud, with authorities seizing assets that now form part of the victim compensation pool.
Ruja Ignatova, the scheme's other co-founder known as the "Cryptoqueen," remains at large. International authorities continue to hunt for Ignatova, with the FBI adding her to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list and Europol placing her on its most-wanted register.
In 2024, the U.S. State Department raised the bounty on Ignatova to $5 million—but her disappearance remains unresolved, with alleged sightings in Russia competing with theories that she may have been killed years earlier.
The Justice Department continues to pursue Ignatova as part of the ongoing investigation, though her absence hasn't prevented authorities from recovering funds for victims. Earlier this year, a court in Guernsey seized $11.4 million linked to the OneCoin fraud.
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