Dr Ruja Ignatova, the self-styled ‘cryptoqueen’, who allegedly led one of many world’s largest cryptocurrency scams, is now on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 10 Most Wished Fugitives checklist, the probe company introduced on Thursday (June 30).
Investigators have accused the 42-year-old girl, who was born in Bulgaria, of defrauding victims of greater than $4 billion (€3.83 billion) by the OneCoin cryptocurrency firm that she based in 2014
The FBI is providing a $100,000 reward for any data resulting in the arrest of Ignatova, who has been lacking since 2017, when US officers first issued a warrant for her arrest.
She is barely the eleventh girl to be included within the FBI’s Ten Most Wished Fugitive Listing in its 72 12 months historical past, as reported by Forbes.
‘Outdated rip-off with a digital twist’
Earlier than main one of the vital infamous cryptocurrency scams, Ruja Ignatova had an illustrious resume, with a regulation diploma from Oxford and a stint with McKinsey.
In 2014, she established OneCoin Ltd, and the ‘cryptoqueen’ started to market her forex as a “bitcoin killer.” In line with investigators, Ignatova made false representations to obtain enormous quantities of funds from buyers, lots of whom didn’t absolutely perceive how you can spend money on cryptocurrency. The corporate operated all over the world, and had greater than 3 million buyers from over 100 nations. Information that have been obtained through the investigation reveal that between the fourth quarter of 2014 and third quarter of 2016 alone, OneCoin generated a whopping €3.353 billion in gross sales income and earned “earnings” of €2.232 billion.
“She timed her scheme completely, capitalizing on the frenzied hypothesis of the early days of cryptocurrency,” stated Damian Williams, the highest federal prosecutor from Manhattan.
Ignatova promised buyers large returns at minimal threat and, in line with prosecutors, provided patrons a fee, in the event that they bought OneCoin to extra folks, in order to lure much more folks into shopping for her fraudulent forex.
IRS Particular Agent in Cost, John R. Tafur referred to as it “an previous rip-off with a digital twist” — which was made for the only real objective of defrauding buyers.
The “exit technique” for OneCoin was to “take the cash and run and blame another person,” Ignatova stated to her co-founder in an e mail unearthed through the investigation.
Investigators allege that it was basically a Ponzi scheme from the very begin, which was falsely portrayed as a cryptocurrency. Ponzi schemes are a sort of fraud the place one occasion guarantees excessive returns on funding with little to no threat. Early buyers are repaid by buying new ones. As soon as there are usually not sufficient folks to safe new rounds of funding, the scheme collapses and buyers lose their cash.
How the rip-off labored
The misrepresentations Ignatova and different OneCoin representatives are stated to have conned victims of the fraud by a collection of false and deceptive statements.
That they had promised that OneCoin cryptocurrency was ‘mined’ by mining servers and its worth was based mostly on market provide and demand, with the worth supposedly rising from €0.50 to round €29.95 per coin, as of January 2019. In actuality, OneCoin was not mined in any respect, and its worth was utterly decided internally by Ignatova and her co-conspirators.
OneCoin additionally claimed to have a blockchain (a digital ledger that identifies the forex and data its historic transactions) that’s utilized by different crypto currencies. Because it was not secured by any such expertise, the OneCoin tokens have been mainly nugatory, as they may not be actively traded, couldn’t be used to purchase something and buyers had no approach of tracing their cash.
“OneCoin claimed to have a non-public blockchain,” stated FBI Particular Agent Ronald Shimko in an announcement reported by AFP.
“That is in distinction to different digital currencies, which have a decentralized and public blockchain. On this case, buyers have been simply requested to belief OneCoin,” he stated.
Ignatov additionally repeatedly advised OneCoin members that an “initial public offering” of the corporate would happen on numerous dates between 2018 and 2019, to create pleasure and obtain much more funding from the victims. Nonetheless, the FBI experiences that this providing was constantly postponed and it by no means befell.
The escape
The ‘cryptoqueen’ disappeared into skinny air in 2017, when investigating our bodies from internationally started to seek for her.
Ignatova had bugged her boyfriend’s condominium after rising suspicious of him. When she discovered that he was cooperating with an FBI probe into OneCoin, she instantly boarded a flight from Bulgaria to Greece and has not been seen since.
She speaks English, German and Bulgarian and could be utilizing a pretend passport. She has brown eyes and darkish hair, nevertheless investigators declare that she might need modified her look, in line with the New York Put up.
Ignatova has since been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit cash laundering, securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, by the US authorities.
In line with The Washington Put up, the primary 4 counts every carry a sentence of as much as 20 years in jail, whereas the final is punishable by as much as 5 years in jail.
After 2017, her brother Konstantin Ignatov took over the corporate. Nonetheless, he was arrested in Los Angeles by the FBI in 2019 for wire fraud. After pleading responsible to a collection of felonies, he entered right into a plea deal to cooperate with US authorities, in line with The Washington Put up.
Together with him, US company lawyer Mark Scott was additionally convicted in 2019 for laundering $400 million for OneCoin.
