The FBI claims Ignatova boarded a plane and disappeared
Ruja Ignatova took the stage in a burgundy prom dress while Alicia Keys’ “Girl on Fire” blared over the speakers. “She looks like a girl but she’s a flame,” sings the song, as Ruja Ignatova thanks the cheering crowd at London’s Wembley Arena.
This happened in June 2016, when the cryptocurrency had reached its peak and investors were trying to cash in on it. Ignatova called herself the “Cryptoqueen” and touted her company, OneCoin, as a profitable rival to Bitcoin in the growing cryptocurrency market.
“In two years, nobody will be talking about Bitcoin anymore,” he said, as investors applauded. Sixteen months later, Ignatova boarded a plane in Sofia, Bulgaria and disappeared. She has not been seen since.
Authorities say OneCoin was a pyramid scheme, defrauding people of more than $4 billion as Ignatova convinced investors in the US and around the world to invest in her company. Federal prosecutors describe OneCoin as one of the largest international fraud schemes ever committed.
Today she is one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted, along with gang leaders and murderers, and is the only woman currently on that list. Of the 529 most wanted on the FBI’s list since its inception in 1950, she is one of only 11 women!
Ignatova and her associates “defrauded unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars by claiming OneCoin would be the ‘Bitcoin killer,'” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, New York’s top prosecutor, said in a statement on last month.
“In reality, OneCoins were completely worthless … Their lies had a single goal: to make everyday people around the world part with their hard-earned money.”
He knew it was a scam from the beginning, court documents say
Since Ignatova disappeared in October 2017, her face has been posted on the FBI’s website and all major news outlets worldwide. She is also one of the most wanted fugitives in Europe.
Court documents detail how Ignatova and OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood knew from the start that their ambitious venture was a scam.
“OneCoin cryptocurrency was created for the sole purpose of defrauding investors,” said IRS Special Agent in Charge John R. Tafur. While Greenwood and Ignatova were working on the idea for OneCoin, they referred to it in emails as a “cheap coin,” federal officials said in court documents.
The documents show that Greenwood described their investors as “stupid” and “crazy” in an email to Ignatova’s brother, Konstantin Ignatov, who also participated in the scam and took over leadership of OneCoin after his sister disappeared , according to prosecutors.
From a young age, Ignatova wanted to become rich
42-year-old Ruja Ignatova is a German national, but was born in Bulgaria, where her father was an engineer and her mother a teacher.
In his book The Missing Crypto Queen, author Jamie Bartlett details the steps of her rise. When she was a little girl, her family moved to Germany, where Ignatova excelled as a student and spent her free time studying and playing chess, Bartlett wrote. Her classmates described her as intelligent and aloof.
Ignatova won a scholarship to a university in Konstanz, Germany, where she met and married a law student. She claimed she did not want children, Bartlett wrote, because they would prevent her from acquiring wealth. He also told the world that he wanted to be a millionaire by the age of 30.
“She was desperate to get rich, even devouring books in the wee hours of the morning on how to make money,” Bartlett wrote.
After studying European law at Oxford University, Ignatova found work in Sofia as a consultant for McKinsey & Company, the international management consultancy.
Customers trusted her. Her language skills, including Russian, German, English and Bulgarian, also helped. Appearance mattered to Ignatova, who often attended events in evening gowns and bright red lipstick, with diamond earrings dangling from her ears. “Everything pointed to success and glamour,” wrote Bartlett. “He was obsessed with style and image.”
OneCoin reportedly promised investors a five- to ten-fold return
Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are digital assets, created and managed by a global, decentralized network of computers instead of a bank or government. Bitcoin, for example, is “mined” or created by crypto professionals, who use armies of servers in data centers.
It is a largely unregulated and highly volatile industry, and expert opinions on the viability of crypto vary. Proponents generally envision a future in which economies run on digital currencies, validated by the community of users rather than a central bank. Critics dismiss it as a Ponzi scheme or, at the very least, an extremely risky investment.
In 2014, Ignatova and Greenwood, her co-founder, began pitching OneCoin to investors in Europe, New York and around the world. They held webinars and conferences where they urged potential investors to deposit funds into an account that would allow them to purchase OneCoin packages, according to the federal indictment.
“OneCoin operated as a multi-level marketing network in which investors received commissions for recruiting others to purchase bundles of cryptocurrency,” federal prosecutors said. The packages were aimed at various income levels, from the “beginner” to the “major investor”.
Ignatova and her partners promised buyers a five- or even ten-fold return on their investment, according to court documents.
A buying frenzy ensued. Between the fourth quarter of 2014 and the fourth quarter of 2016 alone, investors gave OneCoin more than $4 billion, federal prosecutors said, citing records obtained during their investigation. About $50 million came from investors in the U.S., according to court documents.
The storefront began to crack in 2016 when investors struggled to sell their OneCoins to recoup their initial investments, court documents say. Rumors began to spread online that the business was a scam. The media started asking questions. International and US federal investigators became involved.
It is unclear what happened to Ignatova’s marriage. But the FBI said it learned OneCoin was being investigated after it bugged an apartment owned by her American boyfriend and discovered she was cooperating with a federal investigation into her company’s practices.
In October 2017, the US Department of Justice indicted Ignatova. A federal judge in New York issued a warrant for her arrest. Less than two weeks later, on Oct. 25, 2017, he boarded a commercial flight from Sofia, Bulgaria to Greece, according to court documents. She then disappeared, leaving her partners to take responsibility for the failed company.
The FBI said they believe he may have traveled on a German passport from Athens, possibly to the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe or even back to Bulgaria. He is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to her arrest.
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
