OneCoin Victims Get Shot at Recovery 12 Years After $4B Crypto Ponzi Launch

Victims of the OneCoin cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme are finally getting a chance at compensation through a United States Department of Justice program, more than a decade after the fraudulent project launched in 2014.

The DoJ announced on April 13 that $40 million in assets are now available to anyone who purchased OneCoin between 2014 and 2019 and experienced a net loss. The compensation program marks a significant milestone for victims of the $4 billion scam, most of whom have had no recourse to recover their losses until now.

OneCoin was one of the most prominent crypto schemes in terms of scale and international intrigue. The project was founded in 2014 by Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, at a time when cryptocurrency was still a niche internet phenomenon and general knowledge of blockchain technology was limited.

Investors were required to buy packages of tokens that would allow them to “mine” OneCoin, with several different price entry points. The most expensive package costs 225,000 euros, according to CoinMarketCap. Promoters could earn commissions by bringing new investors into the program, allowing the project to expand rapidly across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Despite being marketed as a cryptocurrency, OneCoin was not decentralized. The coin was hosted on centralized servers and was not available for public trading, with owners only able to trade nominal amounts in a closed system.

See also: US Department of Justice Opens $40M Compensation Claims for OneCoin Fraud Victims

Regulators began issuing warnings by late 2015. Bulgaria’s Financial Supervision Commission issued a warning about OneCoin, after which the company ceased all operations in the country. By 2016, Norway, Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden and Latvia were all investigating the project, with Hungary’s central bank calling it a pyramid scheme.

In 2017, Germany, Thailand, Belize, and Vietnam all issued cease-and-desist orders or declared OneCoin illegal. Indian authorities charged Ignatova in July after undercover police arrested 18 organizers of a OneCoin event.

But on Oct. 25, 2017, Ignatova boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens, Greece, and vanished. According to a BBC investigation, no one has seen her since. She failed to appear at a meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, where she was supposed to address investor concerns about delays in a promised exchange.

In early 2018, Bulgarian police raided OneCoin offices in Sofia at the request of German prosecutors, seizing servers and material evidence. Co-founder Greenwood was arrested in Thailand in July on charges of money laundering and fraud.

The scheme’s fallout continued to unfold over subsequent years. In July 2020, two project promoters, Oscar Brito Ibarra and Ignacio Ibarra, were kidnapped and murdered in Mexico, with local media reporting potential involvement by cartels interested in cryptocurrencies.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation put Ignatova on its Ten Most Wanted fugitives list in June 2023, offering a $5 million reward for information leading to her arrest. In September 2023, Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $300 million in damages after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and money laundering.

In 2024, the DoJ arrested and charged William Morro for bank fraud in connection with OneCoin. Morro moved approximately $35 million in OneCoin funds between banks in China and Hong Kong, and $6 million between Hong Kong and the United States. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

By the time authorities dismantled the operation, approximately 3.5 million people had lost money to the crypto scheme. Organizers ultimately made away with an estimated $4 billion in user funds, making it one of the largest cryptocurrency frauds in history.

Victims in the United Kingdom attempted a class action suit in 2024, but it fell apart when litigation funding was terminated. The DoJ’s compensation program represents the first major opportunity for victims to recover their losses.

Ignatova remains at large and continues to appear on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. The case exemplifies the Wild West era of early crypto, defined by schemes and eccentric characters whose effects are still felt today, some 12 years after OneCoin’s founding.