From crypto queen to international fugitive: OneCoin’s Ruja Ignatova disappeared with billions, leaving a thriller nonetheless unsolved.
For eight years, the world has speculated in regards to the destiny of Ruja Ignatova: the so-called “Cryptoqueen” who vanished with billions after pitching OneCoin, a basic Ponzi scheme, abandoning a path of lies, lawsuits, and a thriller that refuses to die.
Crypto.information spoke with those that have dug deep into her story to get their tackle the place she may be now.
Shortly on her background as context: born in Could 1980 in Bulgaria, Ruja Ignatova moved to Germany together with her household on the age of ten, settling in Schramberg, Baden-Württemberg. She pursued increased schooling with distinction, incomes a doctorate in personal worldwide legislation from the College of Konstanz in 2005. She even had a short tutorial stint on the College of Oxford.
Earlier than rising to infamy because the “Cryptoqueen,” Ignatova labored at McKinsey & Firm as a marketing consultant. Nonetheless, her enterprise ventures quickly took a questionable flip. In 2012, she and her father, Plamen Ignatov, had been convicted of fraud in Germany associated to the acquisition and subsequent chapter of a agency.
“The following Bitcoin”
It will not be broadly identified, however OneCoin wasn’t Ignatova’s first enterprise into crypto.
In 2013, she was concerned in a multi-level advertising rip-off referred to as BigCoin. Studies point out that BigCoin was launched by John Ng and primarily based in Hong Kong, with the undertaking marketed utilizing the standard MLM cryptocurrency pitch: “We’re gonna be the subsequent Bitcoin.”
It’s not clear when, however sooner or later, the undertaking was joined by Ronnie Skold, Sebastian Greenwood, Nigel Allen, and Ruja Ignatova herself. Lengthy story brief, BigCoin didn’t make it, because it turned out to be an extraordinary Ponzi scheme, working with out a blockchain in any respect. By 2014, Ignatova left BigCoin to co-found a brand new enterprise with Sebastian Greenwood, higher identified to the world as OneCoin.
Second try
Whereas Ruja Ignatova was the mastermind behind the undertaking, Sebastian Greenwood was a key determine within the operations of OneCoin. In contrast to Ignatova, although, Greenwood was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to twenty years in jail.
The 2 branded OneCoin as a revolutionary cryptocurrency poised to kill Bitcoin. Via high-profile occasions and persuasive advertising, they satisfied hundreds — if not thousands and thousands — to take a position, elevating an estimated $4 billion globally. And nonetheless, like BigCoin, OneCoin additionally wasn’t working on any blockchain, which led to the undertaking’s crash three years after the launch.
On the run?
As authorities doubled down on their investigations, Ignatova vanished. In October 2017, she boarded a flight from Bulgaria, Greece and… disappeared. And not using a hint. Over time, theories about her destiny have ranged from surgical alterations to mafia assassinations. Some stories even recommended that she was murdered on a yacht within the Ionian Sea on the orders of a Bulgarian crime determine, together with her physique allegedly dismembered and discarded.
There’re additionally rumors that Ignatova may truly be on the run, hiding in South Africa, Dubai, and even in Russia.
German documentary filmmaker Johan von Mirbach, who directed the 2022 investigative documentary “The Cryptoqueen – The Nice OneCoin Fraud” doesn’t purchase theories about Ignatova’s demise. In an interview with crypto.information, Mirbach mentioned he doesn’t imagine in theories about her demise, as there are too many “failed efforts to put false tracks about her whereabouts.”
“I’ve talked to safety sources from South Africa and Germany. There are investigations happening about the place she might conceal in South Africa. However no person can inform the place she actually is. She might be in South Africa, in Dubai or — as you declare — in Russia or elsewhere. I’m satisfied although that she continues to be alive as there are such a lot of failed efforts to put false tracks about her whereabouts.”
Johan von Mirbach
In June 2022, the FBI positioned Ignatova on its ten most needed fugitives listing, initially providing a $100,000 reward for info resulting in her arrest. By June 2024, that bounty had grown to $5 million. Whereas Ignatova’s whereabouts aren’t clear, authorized proceedings surrounding her identify proceed as much as as of late.
New alternative
As an example, in August 2024, London’s Excessive Courtroom issued a worldwide freeze order on property linked to Ignatova and her associates following revelations that OneCoin promoters had invested in luxurious properties within the United Arab Emirates, together with a $2.7 million penthouse in Dubai.
By late 2024, investigators had centered their search on Cape City, South Africa, with hypothesis that she was dwelling in an unique enclave underneath a false identification.
Nonetheless, new stories in November 2024 recommended that Ignatova could as an alternative be hiding in Russia. In keeping with journalist Yordan Tsalov, who makes a speciality of Kremlin affairs and has labored with Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, Ignatova has ties to people related to the Russian authorities.
Tsalov says these hyperlinks had been confirmed by Ignatova’s former safety adviser, Frank Schneider, a former Swiss intelligence officer who was employed by OneCoin and later interviewed by Tsalov for a BBC collection.
Commenting on the dimensions of the OneCoin rip-off, Mirbach says the crypto trade is an “unbelievable house” not just for new companies but additionally for criminals who might acquire “far more than with easy analogue frauds.”
“They will simply scale their rip-off to a different degree. The identical mechanism that promotes and boosts on-line/digital enterprise boots on-line fraud. Mobsters will even all the time go into information unexplored and unregulated markets and comply with what’s arising.”
Johan von Mirbach
Now, Mirbach says he’s simply ready for the “first AI-driven fraud that’s arising with this new alternative.”