Irina Dilkinska, the former head of legal and compliance for the OneCoin operation, is headed to federal prison after U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan sentenced her to four years behind bars. She was also ordered to forfeit roughly $111.44 million and will serve a short term of supervised release once the prison term is done. Prosecutors say the OneCoin scheme bilked investors of billions, and her sentence is the latest in a long line of criminal penalties tied to the case.
Sentence, role and government account
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, prosecutors say Dilkinska helped oversee OneCoin’s day-to-day operations and helped launder criminal proceeds, including arranging a transfer of about $110 million to a Cayman Islands entity. The office also notes that she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. “Rather than upholding the law and embracing her position as the Head of Legal and Compliance, she facilitated and committed money laundering,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in the statement.
Prosecutors' filings and an allegation about a Dubai-linked figure
Court filings and coverage of the sentencing papers indicate that prosecutors asked the court for a sentence below the 10-year guideline range but still pushed for a “substantial period of imprisonment,” according to reporting from Inner City Press. That reporting also says the filings cited testimony that Dilkinska told cooperator Konstantin Ignatov a Dubai-linked businessman, Amer (sometimes spelled Aamer) Abdulaziz, had taken at least €100 million in OneCoin proceeds, an allegation first aired in testimony and later picked up by outlets including The Guardian.
Where this sits in the broader OneCoin prosecutions
Dilkinska’s punishment slots into a series of major sentences in the sprawling OneCoin prosecutions. Karl Sebastian Greenwood, a OneCoin co-founder and top promoter, was hit with a 20-year sentence in 2023, as reported by Bloomberg, and earlier this year a former law firm partner who helped launder funds received a 10-year term from the same court. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has highlighted those convictions as part of its push to track and recover the fraud’s global money flows.
Legal implications and unanswered questions
The court’s forfeiture order sits inside a broader asset-recovery effort, but prosecutors and reporters alike say big questions remain about where much of the money ultimately landed and whether other alleged enablers will ever face charges. The trial record and subsequent coverage have repeatedly flagged outside figures connected to OneCoin-related money movements, and those references have sparked renewed attention from regulators and racing-industry watchdogs overseas. For now, Dilkinska’s sentencing closes one chapter on the docket while the search for other alleged actors described in court testimony continues.
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