The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has formally launched a compensation program for victims of the massive OneCoin cryptocurrency fraud, making more than $40 million in forfeited assets available for distribution. Simultaneously, the Southern District of New York (SDNY) is reviewing charges against Ben Pasternak, founder of the Solana-based platform Believe, for an alleged "rug pull" scheme.
The OneCoin restitution program, led by the DOJ's Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics, and Forfeiture Section (MNF), aims to return funds to an estimated 3.5 million victims defrauded of over $4 billion between 2014 and 2019. OneCoin, co-founded by Ruja Ignatova (the "Cryptoqueen") and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, was marketed as a "Bitcoin killer" through a global multi-level marketing network but never operated on a real blockchain. Victims who purchased OneCoin during those years and suffered a net loss can file a petition for compensation at www.onecoinremission.com by the deadline of June 30, 2026.
U.S. Attorney for the SDNY, Jay Clayton, stated, "Between 2014 and 2019, OneCoin’s founders sold a lie disguised as cryptocurrency, costing victims more than $4 billion worldwide. Today’s announcement marks an important step toward returning funds to those harmed." Co-founder Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023, while Ignatova remains on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.
In a separate but related legal action, the SDNY is prosecuting Ben Pasternak, the 26-year-old Australian founder of the Solana platform Believe (formerly Clout). Prosecutors allege Pasternak executed a deceptive rug pull cycle, launching a token called $PASTERNAK (later rebranded as $LAUNCHCOIN), promoting it heavily to spike its value, and then abandoning it after extracting fees. Investors were allegedly told to hold losing tokens and then migrate to a new token called $BELIEVE. The civil complaint claims the platform processed over $6 billion in trades and extracted roughly $54 million in fees while investors suffered massive losses.
