Ruja Ignatova is the self-styled ‘Cryptoqueen’ behind OneCoin, a cryptocurrency that has been described as a pyramid scheme, and has defrauded buyers massive and small of billions of {dollars}. When severe questions started to be requested about OneCoin in 2017, Ignatova disappeared. She’s now been positioned on the FBI’s 10 most needed checklist (opens in new tab) (thanks, BBC (opens in new tab)).
The FBI makes use of this when it believes the general public would possibly be capable of assist discover somebody, and Ignatova has now been lacking for just below 5 years. The discover says that “Ignatova is believed to journey with armed guards and/or associates. Ignatova could have had cosmetic surgery or in any other case altered her look.”
The cosmetic surgery has been rumoured for some time, however that is in all probability the least sensational side of this story. OneCoin started in 2014 and was primarily a multi-level advertising rip-off with crypto on the core: a type of the place individuals get fee for introducing others. The issue being this crypto wasn’t even crypto, within the definitional sense of being constructed on a blockchain.
As a substitute it was a centralised digital forex that OneCoin managed. It is a very particular kind of nothing (the trade was closed in 2017 although, virtually unbelievably, the forex remains to be traded by some).
Ignatova was the important thing issue behind OneCoin’s development: multilingual, extremely educated, all the time dressed fabulously, and able to attracting the type of big investments that get different speculators . An in-depth 2019 BBC investigation detailed how the OneCoin scheme would get its ‘buyers’ to curiosity relations and buddies, significantly after they’d seen numbers that appeared to point out a staggering development in preliminary investments. However a long-promised trade that traded OneCoin again into non-crypto currencies was repeatedly delayed, and by no means materialised.
When investments in Europe started drying up, OneCoin started concentrating on poorer communities in locations akin to Uganda, with horrific outcomes for many who had been taken in.
Europol added Ignatova to its most needed checklist in Might, and the FBI’s discover provides a $100,000 reward. Ignatova was charged with eight crimes in 2019, together with wire fraud and securities fraud.
“That is in all probability the largest growth within the case since Dr Ruja disappeared in October 2017,” journalist Jamie Bartlett instructed the BBC. Bartlett is the determine behind the BBC’s podcast sequence The Lacking Cryptoqueen, an enchanting unpicking of Ignatova’s arc. Bartlett says she has “prime quality faux id paperwork and has modified her look,” in addition to a minimum of $500 million. He additionally factors out that, whereas Ignatova might be lacking, there’s a risk she’s useless.
Ignatova was final seen boarding a flight to Greece in 2017.
