Maybe 1,000 wasn't enough? She was dressed, as usual, in an expensive. "We believe consumers should be wary of dealing with OneCoin," it said. Ruja Plamenova Ignatova ( Bulgarian: , romanized : Rua Plamenova Ignatova; born 30 May 1980) is a Bulgarian -born German citizen and convicted fraudster. By March 2017, more than 3.5 billion had been invested in the OneCoin system. 5 Nr. I've even heard that she might be in London. They are still friends, even though both now realise it's a scam. This platform was launched after many delays. On the other hand, Ruja and her collaborators amassed millions, which provided them with an affluent lifestyle: they bought luxury yachts, expensive jewelery and exclusive properties. "If they still thought we were a fraudulent company, then guess what, that warning's not removed. Find out who her friends were, what her lifestyle was like, her family.". Others told us she was dead - which does remain a possibility. "We are concerned about the potential risk this poses to UK consumers.". Missing Cryptoqueen joins FBI ten most wanted, Revealed: The Cryptoqueen's 13.5m London penthouse. "She was on her way. "You can still use them to buy things, you can still use them to buy political influence and nice houses and yachts. For several months, a French journalist called Maxime Grimbert tried to unpick OneCoin's corporate workings, collecting as many company names and bank account details as he could. "I think she was so scared in the fall of 2017 that she decided to skip.". He was arrested in March 2019 at LA Airport as he was about to board a flight to Bulgaria. The Federal Criminal Police Office announced a 5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. A court reporter was there to hear his testimony, and according to his account of the proceedings Ignatov appears to have implied that his sister had duped him with the same line the organisation put out to its investors - that OneCoin critics were "haters" who could not be believed. "They still exist", he says, in his garden near the village of Hay-on-Wye. In 2016 it was here that 22-year-old Daniel Lienhardt came as he was scraping together the 700,000 Ugandan shillings ($250) he needed to buy a OneCoin starter package. The US Department of Justice, New York County District Attorney's Office, and Dubai Police did not comment. She could hear the whoops and cheers of thousands of adoring fans in the background. Igor Alberts is wearing black-and-gold everything. "So we need you to build a blockchain," he went on. I've also been told by more than one person that it could be as much as 15bn. Listen to The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast, with Jamie Bartlett and producer Georgia Catt, on BBC Sounds. Nobody - not banks, not governments, or the person who invents it - is in charge or can change it. And then went completely off radar. It wasn't just a fake cryptocurrency, it was an old-fashioned pyramid scheme, with the fake coin as its "product". Lots of people were looking to get involved in this strange new opportunity. For its fans this is a revolutionary new form of currency, with the potential to sideline the banks and national currencies, and provide banking for anyone with a mobile phone. Until this week, however, the OneCoin head office remained open for business - and people were continuing to promote the currency. In May 2015, already a very successful MLM seller, Igor Alberts was invited to a OneCoin event in Dubai, where he met lots of people, all apparently making fortunes with this new currency. (She received a fine and a suspended sentence in October 2016.) "You will find her," he said. But they used some of this cash to buy more OneCoin. She now runs Whatsapp support groups for OneCoin investors who realise they have been swindled. "When prophecy fails they believe more strongly," she says. The documents show attendees from Bulgaria's Interior Ministry at the March 2017 Europol meeting. Details first surfaced in 2021 in leaked documents from Dubai's courts, posted online by Dr. Jonathan Levy, a UK-based lawyer, who described her as "the most successful criminal in history.". They thought I ate their money.". Here's an example: Ruja bought a very large property in central Sofia. Jen McAdam on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, The video of Dr Ruja at the Economist conference was what clinched it for Jen McAdam, Igor Alberts and Andreea Cimbala outside their house, Daniel, Prudence and Jamie with children in the poor area of Kampala where Prudence works as a nurse, Dr Ruja was renowned for expensive dresses and red lipstick, Dr Ruja posted a video of herself with her baby on social media, Dr Ruja comes on stage at Wembley to the song This Girl Is On Fire. Game over.". When we started planning the Missing Cryptoqueen podcast in late 2018, no-one really had a clue what happened to Dr Ruja after her disappearance. They keep postponing this. Several OneCoin events took place in the UK after the FCA took down the warning, and money continued to be invested. All over the world, people were already investing their savings into OneCoin, hoping to be part of this new revolution. Back July 2018 he was arrested in Koh Samui, Thailand, and extradited to the US where he pleaded guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The self-styled crypto queen, however, is now wanted by law enforcement for her involvement in the OneCoin scheme. It's not clear who Bjorn and Igor are talking about, or whether they are even talking about the same people, but the US Department of Justice claims to have evidence of a link between Dr Ruja's brother, Konstantin Ignatov - who took over the running of OneCoin when Ruja disappeared - and "significant players in Eastern European organised crime". But it is controversial, because usually only a small number of people make all the money. It's going to go bigger. Dr Ruja herself made a powerful impression too, with her "princess's dresses" and her vision of a financial revolution. They would always need someone in charge who could manipulate the supply, and forgery was too easy. In 2017, Ignatova was already under investigation by the City of London Police, the German authorities, as well as the FBI and Europol, for a string of charges including securities and wire fraud and money laundering. We called the lawyer who is (or was) married to her, and he didn't want to talk. Why have so many people continued to believe in OneCoin, despite all the evidence? THE FBI has added a Bulgarian woman dubbed the 'Crypto Queen' to its infamous 10 most wanted list after she stole billions in the biggest scam EVER. A reward of $100,000 is offered by the FBI for information leading to her arrest. Nobody knew why she wasn't there," recalls one delegate. ", Such explanations don't offer much comfort to those affected. Around the same time, the US authorities charged Dr Ruja in absentia for wire fraud, security fraud and money laundering. There, she recruited members to promote OneCoin and sell to their friends and relatives. Do you know what agencies go after them? It depends upon a special type of database called a blockchain, which is like a huge book - one that Bitcoin owners have independent but identical copies of. But by this stage, thanks to Curry and Bjercke, she knew that a standard SQL server database was no basis for a genuine cryptocurrency. I didn't even know what is a blockchain What doubt can I have?". Sitting at her computer, the Glaswegian clicked on a link and joined a OneCoin webinar. "You're in at such an early stage and it's just going to go like Bitcoin. So with Georgia Catt, producer of The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast, I went to see Oliver Bullough, an expert on what he calls Moneyland - the shadowy parallel world where criminals and the super-rich hide their wealth. He thought OneCoin would give cryptocurrencies a bad name, and he told McAdam bluntly that it was a scam - "the biggest scam in the [expletive] world". They have persuaded their friends and families to invest in OneCoin. But we need to keep going, we needed to find the house. Even the most obscure entry or innocuous comment on a forum is usually saved somewhere, and with enough digging can be found. It was a cryptocurrency company, and it had been running for a while - but it didn't have a blockchain. The family had saved about 3,000 to buy a maize store so that Daniel's mother could stop spending every day in the fields. We soak up the atmosphere, cheer the British contestant, and then leave. In fact, she had gone underground. According to the BBC in an article dated July 2, 2022, Ignatova stashed millions of dollars in the rival Bitcoin before disappearing in 2017. "And in that sense it's cultic.". Doors opened. There have been several alleged sightings of her, and it is believed that she could be travelling in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Dubai. Lots of money. After Jen McAdam invested into OneCoin she was constantly told she was part of the OneCoin "family". Barely a year later, she bamboozled billions and left it behind (not the money) - family included. It turned out to be a shouting match, but it would send McAdam's life in a new direction. Ruja Ignatova and her business partner Sebastian Greenwood conned their clients out of $4 Billion. Could she really be hiding out in the heart of the EU? This is notoriously difficult - go online and you'll find hundreds of different descriptions, some of them utterly baffling to the non-specialist. "This is classic," he exclaims. Beginning in . "No other company even came close," Alberts says. Answer 1 of 6: Hello out there. The book is called The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away With It. He claims metadata on the files suggests she obtained the information via her own contacts in Bulgaria. They were shown photographs of her numerous degrees, and copies of Forbes magazine with her portrait on the front cover. From a tiny fragment of a poster advertising a tennis tournament, an expert identified the park in which one photograph was taken. Video, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story, Listen to The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast on BBC Sounds, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, Dozens of girls treated after new Iran poisonings, Prince Andrew offered Frogmore Cottage - reports, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Beer and wine sales in Canada fall to all-time low, Man survives 31 days in jungle by eating worms. There are videos of the minister, known as Bishop Fred, leading the congregation in call and response. That was her last known location. It added that the allegations made about it around the world were being challenged, stating: "Our partners, our customers and our lawyers are fighting successfully against this action around the globe and we are sure that the vision of a new system on the basis of a 'financial revolution' will be established. Fairly soon Igor Alberts was making more than 1m a month from OneCoin, which quickly became the biggest product in network marketing. So when an opportunity arises, they have the fear of missing out. Video, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. According to OneCoin, its main business was selling educational material for cryptocurrency trading. It was only earlier this year that the US authorities revealed she'd flown to Athens on 25 October 2017. "When you look at my clothes, they are disciplined," he says. It is believed that more than a million investors from 175 countries were defrauded into investing in OneCoin. A Maserati and Aston Martin are parked outside. Perhaps it would put him in an uncomfortable position. He doesn't seem certain it's a good idea. He is now facing extradition to the US for his alleged role in the OneCoin fraud. But though she has stopped recruiting, many others haven't, and there are still plenty of interested buyers, she says. "One Life!" But when it comes to someone trying to find them - whether that's a journalist or a police officer - they are invisible.". Up to 90 years for the Ponzi scheme. "In two years, nobody will speak about Bitcoin any more!" Born on May 30, 1980, in Bulgaria, Ignatova moved to Germany with her family when she was 10 years old. "I'm devastated for all the UK victims," Jen McAdam told me, when she heard the news. "If you have any negativity you should not be in this group," she was told. Read about our approach to external linking. Except now with plastic surgery, and so harder to spot. He was initially contracted by OneCoin in order to develop their blockchain for them. She asks what news we have about OneCoin. Mr Schneider denies obtaining the documents, which he says were passed to him on a USB memory stick by Ms Ignatova. We should try to get the tracker off it, he says, and he doesn't appear to be joking. The FCA said it had been up for long enough, but OneCoin promoters presented this as proof that the UK authorities considered OneCoin a legitimate investment. "When you talk about the amount of money that's been put into OneCoin of course there's people out there who are pissed off and would do anything to shut anyone like me up," says Bjorn Bjercke, the blockchain expert who discovered there was no blockchain, and started talking about it publicly. If it doesn't happen, life is hard.". "I was thinking: 'What is my job going to be? Members could later exchange these educational packages, ranging from 100 euros to 118,000 euros, for OneCoins. As in other countries, OneCoin has spread here through networks of friends and families. Investors might not have understood the technology, but they could see her talking to huge audiences, or at the Economist conference. The degrees are genuine. To buy the packages some sold their cattle, their land and even their houses - with disastrous consequences. "Acting on behalf of investors and creditors of OneCoin," Levy described it as one of the largest and most successful financial pyramids in history, seeking an investigation of misfeasance by the Bulgarian government for taking no steps to seize assets from OneCoin including real estate, bank accounts, and 230,000 Bitcoins.. She reportedly earned a PhD in private international law from the University of Constance and has a daughter who. So she decided to invest her savings and the money from her inheritance from her father into OneCoin. It took McAdam three months to go through it all, but questions were starting to form. At first she was told it was something she didn't need to know, but when she persisted she finally got the truth in a voicemail in April 2017. One week later McAdam bought a "tycoon" package, for 5,000. She studied at Oxford University and received a PhD in International Law from the University of Constance. Igor returned with a new mission - and gave new instructions to all the salespeople in his downline: stop whatever you're doing, and start selling OneCoin. He introduced her to Bjorn Bjercke, the blockchain developer who said there was no blockchain. There is a BBC Sounds podcast called "The Missing Cryptoqueen." Amazingly, even after this, OneCoin continued to function - and people continued to invest in it. he recalls. We will be there for a week and wanted to take various day trips as well as tour the actual city. She watched excitedly on the OneCoin website as the value of her coins steadily rose. She had been impressed by Ruja and the upward trend in the price of OneCoin without the fluctuations other cryptocurrencies usually have. [20], Afterward, the North Rhine-Westphalia Police and German Federal Criminal Police Office announced that Ignatova is sought for fraud charges. 16 months' suspended imprisonment for a previous case. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. On 6 March 2019 Konstantin Ignatov was at Los Angeles International airport, waiting to fly back to Bulgaria after some OneCoin meetings in the US. One of the main OneCoin offices in Kampala is attached to a church. His wife, Andreea Cimbala, nods along, adding that if he wakes up and puts on pink underwear, he sticks to pink as he chooses his shirt, trousers and jacket. "OneCoins principals continue to operate from Bulgaria," according to Dr Levy. He points out that he spent millions buying OneCoin, possibly more than anyone else. [14][15], In 2013, she was involved with a multi-level marketing scam called BigCoin. On the run since 2017, Dr Ruja Ignat This is clearly a question for a professional, which is why Georgia and I went to see private investigator Alan McLean. You've heard of Google, but there are several other search engines that specialise in this. The BBC was not able to verify all of the documents leaked. The 42-year-old Bulgarian-born woman is wanted for her alleged role in running a cryptocurrency scam known as OneCoin. I explain that this is probably beyond my abilities (apart from being illegal). At the age of 10, her family moved to Germany. 2023 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. She started her own company, OneCoin, in 2014 with her brother Konstantin Ignatov, which was touted as a lucrative rival to the leading . The now 42-year-old is thought to hold both Russian and Ukrainian passports and use a fake ID. On October 25, two weeks after the Lisbon event, she boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens, Greece. The problem, he explains, is that following the money isn't as easy as it sounds, because criminals structure their companies and bank accounts in such a way that their assets seem to disappear. A reward is offered for information leading to the arrest of the co-founder of the alleged cryptocurrency 'OneCoin' in hiding since 2017. bka.de/oeffentlichkeitsfahndung14", "Ruja Ignatova: What we know about the OneCoin affair DW 07/05/2022", "OneCoin's Missing 'Crypto Queen' Is Now One of Europe's Most-Wanted Fugitives", https://twitter.com/VessOnSecurity/status/1627201381873352704/, "The life and crimes of Ruja Ignatova, new to FBI's 10 Most Wanted Ruja Ignatova", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ruja_Ignatova&oldid=1141594616, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Bulgarian-language text, Articles with failed verification from February 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. In 2014, 34-year-old Ignatova and Sebastian Greenwood, an expert in multi-level marketing, launched a cryptocurrency called OneCoin. It meant Ignatova was kept out of public records and land registry deeds until now. He tells me he's received death threats as a result of speaking out. Black-and-gold shoes, black-and-gold pleated suit, black-and-gold shirt, black-and-gold sunglasses, and he has a thick black-and-gold ring on. Hawara: 'What happened was horrific and barbaric'. Dr. Ruja Ignatova is the only scammer who is on both the FBI and Interpol's 2022 Ten Most Wanted Lists. ), 'Hun, this could be your opportunity to get rich'. Not guilt," he replies. "OK Jen they don't want to disclose that kind of information, just in case something goes wrong where the blockchain is being held. You can also see more on the next episode of BBC Click. VideoRecord numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. But earlier this month, Ignatova reportedly came out of the woodwork to claim one of her properties. It was easy: you purchased OneCoin tokens, and these then generated coins, which went into your account. The agent replied that this was correct. That's the most important thing of all," he says. This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 21:13. "I've never told her directly that it's not going to work - that there is no more money, there's no more hope," he tells me. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Bishop Fred, we learned, is now one of the country's top promoters of OneCoin, though he says it's no longer promoted during church services. I would have just turned my back and walked away," he says. In August this year, the City of London police ended a two-year investigation into OneCoin. Oliver describes this kind of dizzying arrangement as "improbably standard". You told me it was a cryptocurrency company.'". She is big on the fairytale and cinderella stuff so castles. I show his results to Bullough, who immediately notices how many British companies there are. Daniel's mother then tells us that when she first saw me and Georgia, she assumed it was a good sign - that perhaps it meant that her money was going to arrive at last. Founded and led by Dr Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian law PHD graduate and businesswoman, it grew quickly, often driven by hyperbolic public events. From the very beginning, she was a gifted child and always at the top of her class. VideoRecord numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. They can easily kill me. We also learned that Dr Ruja had a daughter in late 2016, and that she remained very close to her. Like this one at Wembley Arena in London in 2016. In an ideal world, regulators would take action to protect consumers from scams like OneCoin. ", The City of London Police told the BBC: "There was insufficient evidence to support criminal proceedings against individuals based in the UK, though the force has never specified that there had been no concerns surrounding OneCoin. Read about our approach to external linking. Bjercke would get an apartment and a car - and an attractive annual salary of about 250,000. But later we hear that we might have been in the presence of Dr Ruja - that she was there, in the same room, right in front of our noses. Dr Ruja Ignatova has been charged with wire fraud, security fraud and money laundering, by the US authorities By Jamie Bartlett Presenter, The Missing Cryptoqueen In June 2016, Dr Ruja. "It's hard. He takes the first one on the list and looks it up on the Companies House website. Phil and Georgia both recruit two people, and then all four of them recruit two more, and so on. Looking to get ideas for places to take our 3 year old while in Frankfurt. What's he waiting for? Men are drinking champagne from the bottle, everyone is eyeing us in a way that makes us feel very uncomfortable. OneCoin, Dr Ruja told the Wembley audience, was the "Bitcoin Killer". he shouts. When I ask him who might be behind the threats, he won't elaborate. The 16th century English buccaneer Sir Francis Drake died without heirs and this has inspired many to search for his supposed fortune, and others to swindle fortune hunters. Author's note: I am not an expert in cryptocurrencies. In an interconnected global economy, assets can simply vanish, and you end up chasing shadows. We explore the path she followed in her business life, making her extremely rich, extremely quicklybut it was all done at the expense of others. [12] She reportedly has also worked for McKinsey & Company. The Rothschild family (/ r (s) t a l d / ROTH(S)-chylde, German: [ot.lt]) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire, who established his banking business in the 1760s. At the gated entrance to their mansion is a 10ft-high wrought iron gate with their names and the slogan "What dreams may come". [23] This listing was reciprocated by Europol adding Ignatova to its 'most wanted' list; however, Deutsche Welle notes that the Europol listing was removed under unknown circumstances. Ignatova founded Onecoin in concert with Sebastian Greenwood and her brother, Konstantin Ignatov. Bjorn Bjercke is a blockchain expert and he was the first person who started speaking publicly against OneCoin. She is best known as the founder of a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme known as OneCoin, which The Times has described as "one of the biggest scams in history". "What's the name of the company?" Thanks for contacting us. Ruja Ignatova, the self-described "Cryptoqueen.". That was the last time anyone saw or heard from Dr Ruja. Video, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Dozens of girls treated after new Iran poisonings, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, Ed Sheeran says wife developed tumour in pregnancy, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Covid origin likely China lab incident - FBI chief, Man survives 31 days in jungle by eating worms, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US. FBI records presented in court documents earlier this year indicate that on 25 October 2017, just two weeks after her Lisbon no-show, she boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens. His mother had doubts, but he persuaded her to put the money into OneCoin instead. The company went bankrupt shortly after acquisition under dubious circumstances. In addition to losing their own money, they were the instigators for their loved ones to lose their investments as well. 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From a tiny fragment of a poster advertising a tennis tournament, an expert in..