Ruja Ignatova, dubbed the “Cryptoqueen,” was positioned on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) listing of Ten Most Needed Fugitives final week. The FBI additionally put up a $100,000 (€97,292) reward for her.
Ignatova is accused of defrauding gullible buyers everywhere in the world and swindling them of billions of {dollars}.
“She is needed for her alleged participation in a large-scale fraud scheme involving cryptocurrency,” the company mentioned.
Final month, the EU’s law-enforcement company Europol additionally positioned the 42-year-old on its Most Needed listing.
However her identify now not seems on the listing and it is not clear why or when her identify was eliminated.
Who’s Ruja Ignatova?
A German citizen who lived in Bulgaria, Ignatova launched OneCoin in 2014, ostensibly aiming to switch bitcoin because the world’s main digital foreign money.
It operated throughout the globe and claimed to have over 3 million members worldwide by the top of 2016.
However in contrast to bitcoin or different digital currencies, OneCoin was not backed by any public, secured and decentralized blockchain-type expertise.
The Bulgaria-based OneCoin Ltd., as an alternative, claimed to have a “personal blockchain,” in accordance with the FBI.
The pretend cryptocurrency had no actual worth and could not be used to purchase something.
US authorities known as it one of many largest pyramid schemes in historical past and mentioned Ignatova was the mastermind behind the entire rip-off.
In keeping with them, it operated as a multilevel advertising community and a Ponzi scheme, the place early buyers are inspired to recruit others after which paid out by receipts from later buyers.
What will we find out about her current whereabouts?
Ignatova disappeared in 2017 when she suspected that US investigators had launched a probe into OneCoin.
“Investigators imagine Ignatova might have been tipped off that she was underneath investigation by US and worldwide authorities,” the FBI mentioned. “She traveled from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens, Greece, on October 25, 2017, and has not been seen since.”
In 2019, the US charged her with wire fraud, cash laundering and securities fraud.
The BBC made a profitable podcast, “The Lacking Cryptoqueen,” based mostly on her deeds.
Who else was concerned within the rip-off?
Most of Ignatova’s alleged collaborators, together with OneCoin’s co-founder Sebastian Greenwood, have been arrested.
Greenwood was detained in Thailand in 2018 after which extradited to the USA, the place he stays in jail awaiting trial.
Ignatova’s youthful brother Konstantin Ignatov was arrested in March 2019 in Los Angeles in connection to the rip-off. He pleaded responsible to fraud and cash laundering costs.
Mark Scott, a former company lawyer, was convicted in November 2019 of laundering $400 million for the group by utilizing a community of shell corporations, offshore financial institution accounts and funding funds.
One other man, David Pike, pleaded responsible to committing financial institution fraud. He was sentenced to 2 years probation in March.
Edited by: Uwe Hessler