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What happened to Ruja Ignatova and where is the “missing crypto queen” now?
The Bulgarian “cryptorequeen” Ruja Ignatova, who is among FBIThe top ten most wanted for his fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme is still at large.
In 2022, Ruja Ignatova, now 44, was placed on the list after the feds called her the self-proclaimed “crypto queen” defrauded investors of more than $4 billion, with a Ponzi scheme through his now-defunct company, OneCoin.
Vanishing into thin air in 2017, the Bulgarian-born scammer remains a fugitive, with officials offering $100,000 for information on her whereabouts.
She was added to the list in June 2022, after allegedly defrauding investors with her $4 billion cryptocurrency pyramid scheme and after an £11 million penthouse believed to belong to her was on sale in January 2023.
But where is the Bulgarian mind now?
Ruja Ignatova, now 44, is a Bulgarian woman who the feds say the self-styled “cryptocurrency queen” defrauded investors out of more than $4 billion
What are you supposed to have done?
Ignatova allegedly used her OneCoin cryptocurrency to defraud billions of investors around the world between 2014 and 2018.
Investigators believe Ignatova received a tip in 2017 after a The U.S. District Court in New York issued a warrant for his arrest, leading the alleged fraudster to travel to Greece and disappear.
Dubbed the “queen of cryptocurrencies,” Ignatova, a lawyer, co-founded OneCoin in 2014 as the “Bitcoin killer,” luring investors to buy bundles of her cryptocurrency.
Investigators said a key part of his business model was to push investors to sell additional packages of OneCoin to friends and family, which was essentially a pyramid scheme to pay those at the top.
“Ignatova targeted individuals who may not have fully understood the ins and outs of cryptocurrencies, but were moved by Ignatova’s impressive resume and the marketing strategies used by OneCoin,” the FBI said in a statement.
Bulgarian-born Ignatova is only the 11th woman to be placed on the FBI’s most wanted list in its 74-year history – and remains the only woman in the top 10.
She is also wanted in Germany through an Interpol Red Notice, which warns that she may have surgically changed her appearance to avoid capture.
Investigators said he was living in luxury before traveling to Sofia, Bulgaria, after an arrest warrant was issued on October 12, 2017.
She was then reported traveling from Sofia to Athens, Greece, on October 25, and has not been seen since.
In 2022, authorities believed he may have been traveling on a fake German passport to the United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, Russia, Germany and other parts of Eastern Europe.
Bulgarian-born Ignatova is only the 11th woman to be placed on the FBI’s most wanted list in its 74-year history – and remains the only woman in its top 10
Where is she now?
But in January 2023, it emerged that lawyers representing her had made a formal application against a four bedroom property in Kensingtonlisting the OneCoin founder as the “beneficial owner” of the apartment on Companies House.
The revelation comes after a joint probe by Jamie Bartlett and the BBC in 2021 established that the missing “Cryptoqueen” was linked to a property in the exclusive Abbots House condominium.
The same apartment was reportedly on the market for £11 million through Knight Frank, which describes the house as an “impressive four-bedroom penthouse”, in one of the “most exciting developments” in the fugitive’s history, he said Bartlett.
“The most wanted woman in the world is now officially listed as the latest owner of a London penthouse,” she told iNews.
Ruja Ignatova allegedly scammed investors around the world to raise $4 billion for her cryptocurrency OneCoin, which was a pyramid scheme
“This suggests that she is still alive, and that there are documents out there somewhere that contain vital clues to her recent whereabouts.”
Ignatova is believed to have stayed at the apartment for a short time in 2016, but it has remained largely empty since then, with i newspaper claiming it was occasionally visited by Ignatova’s brother Konstantin and Sebastian Greenwood, co-founder of OneCoin. Both pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering in the United States.
Her whereabouts are not yet known, but she is thought to still be alive.
The Missing Crypto Queen: Dead or Alive? will be broadcast on BBC One’s Panorama at 8pm.