Key Takeaways:
In October 2017, Ruja Ignatova took an early morning flight from Sofia to Athens, never to be seen again. The Bulgarian is the only woman on the FBI’s Most Wanted Listed after defrauding investors of $4.5 billion in a cryptocurrency scam.
The Oxford-educated German-Bulgarian businesswoman co-founded a fake cryptocurrency scheme called OneCoin. She promised innocent victims worldwide high returns for investing in her token, even calling it the next big investment opportunity in the industry and a rival to the might of Bitcoin.
During an investor event in London, shortly before absconding, the “Cryptoqueen” claimed that OneCoin would become such a hit that no one would talk about Bitcoin in two years.
Ignatova and Her Partners Scammed $4.5 Billion Through ‘OneCoin’ Crypto Fraud
Over 3 million people are believed to have invested in OneCoin between 2014 and 2015. The scheme was pitched to various investors in North America and Europe through online webinars and conferences where they were prompted to deposit funds into an account to purchase OneCoin packages that promised buyers a five to ten-fold return on investment.
Ignatova and co-founder Karl Greenwood, a Swedish-American businessman, marketed the pyramid scheme by leveraging a multi-level marketing structure that paid commissions to OneCoin community members who recruited others to buy its crypto packages.
Turns out they lied to investors that OneCoin’s value was determined by the market, but in reality, its price was set arbitrarily. The US Department of Justice declared that OneCoin was conceived as a fraud scheme “from day one”.
While Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this year, the Cryptoqueen who orchestrated this event is nowhere to be found.
BBC Documentary Reveals Cryptoqueen’s Deep Relationship With Bulgarian Crimelord ‘Taki’
A new BBC documentary claims that Ignatova may have deep connections with the Bulgarian underworld. At least that is what Richard Reinhardt, who began the investigation into OneCoin for the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) alongside the FBI told the news outlet.
He mentioned a key character in the story who was in charge of keeping her safe. This man was Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis, a “big-time drug guy” commonly known as ‘Taki’. Reinhardt said Taki’s name “came up more than once” during the investigation and was a recurring theme.
In 2019, US government prosecutors said in court that Ignatova’s head of security was a major organized crime figure in Bulgaria but hadn’t named him. The assistant attorney said they have evidence that the person is a very significant drug trafficker in the country. Another government lawyer said the same “head of security” was also involved in the disappearance of Ignatova.
Reinhardt says she was a far more sophisticated criminal than most people realize, referring to her as a “white-collar combined with a drug trafficker or mafia guy on steroids”.
The US government’s speculations turned out to be true as a leaked Europol document showed that Bulgarian police had established connections between Ignatova and Taki long before her disappearance in 2017.
The police also suspect Taki of using the OneCoin network to launder proceeds of drug trafficking.
The head of an organized crime organization has an almost mythical status in his native Bulgaria. Although he has never been convicted of any crimes, Taki and his associates are wanted for armed robbery, drug smuggling, and murder.
Taki is now believed to live in Dubai, where Ignatova also bought a luxury penthouse. The fraudster has bank accounts in the country that received tens of millions of dollars from the OneCoin fraud.
Citing reports by multiple sources, the BBC’s Eye Investigations claims that Taki and Ignatova had a close personal relationship and that he was the godfather to her daughter. According to one Bulgarian source close to Ignatova, she may have paid Taki up to 100,000 euros a month for protection.
The Europol documents also link the pair to a complex deal to sell a plot of land on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.
Bulgarian Police and IRS Investigator Beleive Ignatova was Murdered by Taki
However, there are also fears that Taki may have gotten Ignatova killed. In 2022, Bulgarian journalist Dimitar Stoyanov was handed a police report found at the home of a murdered officer, in which an informant detailed overhearing Taki’s brother-in-law drunkenly admitting that Ignotova had been murdered.
The crime lord is said to have ordered the hit in 2018 and her body was dismembered and dumped off a yacht in the Ionian Sea.
Bulgarian officials confirmed the authenticity of the police document. Taki’s associates and even Reinhardt believe the theory that he got her killed. Although there is no evidence to point fingers at the mafia boss, Reinhardt said it fits with the way drug cartels operate.
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