MYSTERY surrounds Ruja Ignatova, who’s wanted by the FBI for allegedly scamming billions out of investors and may have been murdered by the man who was protecting her. The ‘Crypto Queen’ vanished after her crimes came to light. Here's all you need to know.
Who is Ruja Ignatova? Ruja Plamenova Ignatova was born on May 30, 1980 in Bulgaria. Ignatova emigrated to Germany with her family when she was ten-years-old and spent part of her childhood in Schramberg. She graduated from the University of Oxford in England, before heading back to Germany to earn a PhD in private international law from the University of Konstanz in 2005.
Ignatova married German lawyer Bjorn Strehl, and the pair had a daughter together in 2016. Read more on news What did Ruja Ignatova do? Ignatova was first convicted of fraud in Germany in 2012, after her father Plamen Ignatov bought a company that was quickly declared bankrupt in mysterious circumstances. She was given a suspended sentence of 14 months imprisonment for her involvement.
The following year she set up what’s alleged to be a multi-level marketing scam called BigCoin, which was the original version of what ended up as OneCoin in 2014. These are commonly known as “pyramid schemes”, where people recruit new members with the promise of making money. Most read in Showbiz Each new member pays the person who recruited them, before they try to recruit people to do the same for them.
They can sound attractive, but they’re considered a scam as the people at the top of the pyramid who start them tend to be the ones who profit, whilst those lower down usually lose money. Why is Ruja Ignatova wanted by the FBI? Ignatova is wanted by the FBI after allegedly scamming investors out of $4.5bn (£3.
54bn) through her fake cryptocurrency business OneCoin. In early 2019, she was charged by US authorities for wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. She was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted in June 2022, and there’s now a reward of up to $5million (£3.
7million) for information that leads to her being found. Ignatova is the subject of an international Interpol warrant by German authorities. Reports in 2023 and 2024 suggested that Ignatova may have been murdered in 2018 on the orders of Bulgarian organised crime figure "Taki" Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis.
Greenwood and his co-conspirators, including fugitive Ruja Ignatova, conned unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars with promises of a ‘financial revolution’ and claims that OneCoin would be the ‘Bitcoin killer’ It’s thought he’s the man who was in charge of keeping her safe. Taki is widely suspected as being the head of a Bulgarian crime gang, and has been investigated multiple times for murder, armed robbery and drug smuggling - although he’s never been prosecuted. Lawsuits have been filed against a number of journalists who published investigations against him.
A Bulgarian journalist reportedly heard Taki’s brother-in-law drunkenly saying he’d had her murdered and dumped her body off a yacht in the sea, but this has never been proven. What is OneCoin? OneCoin was a fraudulent cryptocurrency. It began operating around 2015, and in just over a year had taken in more than $4billion (£3billion) from at least 3.
5million victims. According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office on September 12, 2023, investors were convinced that OneCoin was the next “can’t miss” investment opportunity. Through the structure that was set up, members received commission for recruiting others to put their money into the scheme.
But OneCoin had no actual value to it. Sebastian Karl Greenwood - who founded the scheme with Ignatova - was jailed for twenty years in 2023 after pleading guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Sitting at the top of the pyramid scheme, he made over $300million from the money that people had put into it.
US Attorney Damian Williams said: “As a founder and leader of OneCoin, Karl Sebastian Greenwood operated one of the largest fraud schemes ever perpetrated. “Greenwood and his co-conspirators, including fugitive Ruja Ignatova, conned unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars with promises of a ‘financial revolution’ and claims that OneCoin would be the ‘Bitcoin killer.’ “In fact, OneCoins were entirely worthless, and investors were left with nothing, while Greenwood lined his own pockets with over $300 million.
” Greenwood was arrested at his residence on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand in 2018. In addition to his prison sentence, he was ordered to pay back around $300billion he’s thought to have gained from the scam. How to watch Fugitive: The Mystery of The Crypto Queen Fugitive: The Mystery of The Crypto Queen will be available to watch on Channel 4 - both on TV screens and streaming online.
The first episode airs on Channel 4 on Tuesday July 23, 2024, at 10pm, with another chance to see it on 4Seven the following Monday at 9pm. There are three episodes over three consecutive nights, each one digging deeper into the mystery. The first episode looks at the OneCoin scam, and interviews investors who put their life savings into it.
The documentary asks how Ignatova managed to con so many normal people and get them to part with everything they had. The second episode in the series examines how a group of people started to ask questions about the OneCoin scheme. When the shady past of those running the scam started to come out, the people trying to expose it come up against threats of violence and legal action.
As OneCoin continues to grow, less and less is seen of Ruja, and her brother Konstantin becomes the figurehead for the scheme. The FBI are finally onto their case - but while they manage to arrest Konstantin, Rula is nowhere to be found. Rula is now on the FBI’s most wanted list.
READ MORE SUN STORIES A reward it put up for her capture, but it’s as if she’s vanished off the face of the earth. The third episode of the series asks where the missing billions have gone, and looks at the theories surrounding her mysterious disappearance. Here's a look at the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives: Alexis Flores Omar Alexander Cardenas Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel Alejandro Rosales Castillo Ruja Ignatova Donald Eugene Fields II Wilver Villegas-Palomino Vitel'Homme Innocent Arnoldo Jimenez.
