The brother of the infamous “Cryptoqueen” fugitive has reportedly been released from a US prison for his role in the $4 billion OneCoin crypto fraud.
Bloomberg reports that Konstantin Ignatov, the brother of Ruja Ignatova, received a sentence of 34 months behind bars – time that he had already served in prison.
Authorities said that after his sister disappeared in 2017, Ignatov became the de facto leader of the fraud.
But since Ignatov cooperated with prosecutors, the judge recommended a sentence of time served after he pleaded guilty. Ignatov was also ordered to forfeit $118,000.
Part of his testimony was against Mark Scott, a lawyer who agreed to launder hundreds of millions of dollars for the OneCoin scam. Scott was eventually found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the report.
Ignatov was initially arrested in the airport of Los Angeles in 2019 and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
In September, Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the scam and ordered to forfeit over $300 million.
Ruja Ignatova, whose whereabouts remain unknown, was placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list in 2022. However, an earlier report indicates that she may have been murdered in 2018 at the order of a drug lord.
OneCoin, launched in 2014 in Bulgaria by Ruja and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, was a fraudulent operation that marketed a digital asset of the same name in the style of a pyramid scheme.
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Featured Image: Shutterstock/SerGRAY/Natalia Siiatovskaia
