Alleged Forsage co-founder extradited from Thailand, pleads not guilty in $340 million Ponzi case

A Ukrainian national accused of co-founding the Forsage cryptocurrency investment platform was extradited from Thailand last week and pleaded not guilty in federal court in Portland, Oregon, becoming the first of four co-defendants charged in a $340 million Ponzi scheme to face a U.S. courtroom.

Olena Oblamska, 42, also known online as "Lola Ferrari," was arraigned on May 11 on a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to a notice posted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon. A magistrate judge ordered her detained pending a four-day jury trial scheduled to begin July 14.

Oblamska was taken into custody in February when Thailand's Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau raided a condominium in the Chalong subdistrict of Phuket, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported Sunday. Thai officers seized phones, computer equipment, a laptop, an iPad and documents during the arrest. Thai authorities did not name her at the time, and the FBI and DOJ declined to confirm her detention in the months that followed, according to ICIJ.

Oblamska had previously been believed to be hiding in Bali, Indonesia, and was characterized as Russian in earlier filings. She is the first of four Forsage co-defendants to be brought into U.S. custody since a federal grand jury in Oregon indicted the group in February 2023, as The Block previously reported. Co-defendants Vladimir Okhotnikov, Mikhail Sergeev and Sergey Maslakov, all Russian nationals, remain at large.

Prosecutors allege the four founders launched Forsage in January 2020 and marketed it as a decentralized investment platform built on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain and Tron smart contracts. Once an investor purchased a "slot," the smart contract automatically routed their funds to earlier participants, the hallmark of a Ponzi structure, according to the indictment. The defendants also allegedly siphoned a portion of investor funds into wallets they controlled via the project's "xGold" smart contract.

Blockchain analytics cited by the Justice Department show that more than 80% of investors in Forsage's Ethereum program received less ETH back than they had deposited, and that over half received nothing at all. Prosecutors dispute the founders' marketing claim that 50 participants became millionaires through the platform, saying only one user ID, controlled by the defendants themselves, received more than $1 million in cryptocurrency from the scheme.

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued 11 people tied to Forsage on civil fraud charges in August 2022, including the four founders and several U.S.-based promoters known as the "Crypto Crusaders." The criminal indictment that followed in February 2023 was characterized by prosecutors as the first criminal case targeting a so-called DeFi Ponzi scheme.

Okhotnikov, identified by prosecutors as Forsage's operational leader, fled to Dubai and has resurfaced in unlikely settings since. He co-wrote, co-produced and stars in disgraced actor Kevin Spacey's directorial comeback "Holiguards Saga — The Portal of Force," which premiered at a private event in Berlin in February, Variety reported last year. A court in Tbilisi sentenced him in absentia to 10 years in prison in 2024 for laundering $1.1 million in Forsage proceeds, per ICIJ's Coin Laundry investigation. Okhotnikov has maintained his innocence. 

If convicted, Oblamska faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. The case is being investigated by the FBI's Portland Field Office, the U.S. Secret Service, and Homeland Security Investigations offices in New York and Bangkok. The Justice Department is asking Forsage investors who lost funds to come forward as potential victims.