From queen of cryptocurrencies to head of “the most wanted”

Cryptocurrencies represent an illusion of instant wealth very typical of the 21st century.

Digital money that can be purchased for pennies and sold, after a while, in thousands: this is how they are promoted.

They are, in some way, the update of the gold rush or the new quest for El Dorado.

Some consider them a tool to break the domination of the big banks and financial institutions, since only supply and demand decide the fluctuations of a cryptocurrency, and not a State, central bank or company.

For others, it is just another speculative bubble, a scam to attract ambitious but candid people, which bears more than one similarity to pyramid schemes.

There is no shortage of presidents on the board, as is the case with the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele,

that they bet the fate of their Government on the success of bitcoin, the best-known and most popular cryptocurrency.

And there are also shady stories, such as that of the German-Bulgarian citizen Ruja Ignatova, known as the “crypto-queen”, on the run since 2017 and whom the FBI placed, last week, at the top of its most wanted list, along with several first-rate drug traffickers and murderers (Europol had done the same a few weeks earlier).

Ignatova is accused of fraud and money laundering, as she was the founder and head of OneCoin, a cryptocurrency launched in 2014 and which managed to attract investments of more than 4,000 million dollars, according to investigations by the British public broadcaster BBC, before it became clear that he had no way to operate.

Ignatova did not appear at a meeting with promoters of her company that was to take place in Lisbon, Portugal, in October 2017. Days later, according to police records, she boarded a flight to Athens.

Since then nothing has been heard from her.

The authorities received dozens of complaints and were forced to investigate.

Two cryptocurrency promoters, by the way, were found dead in July 2020 in Mazatlan, Mexico.

Many of those who invested money in OneCoin were seduced by the firm and charismatic personality of its owner and convinced by her academic curriculum, which included a doctorate in Law from the prestigious University of Contanza, in Germany, located in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where Ruja settled as a child, after her family migrated from Bulgaria.

The woman also claimed to have worked at the prestigious consulting firm McKinsey and even to have studied at Oxford.

What those who entrusted him with their savings did not know was that Ignatova had a previous criminal record.

She and her father bought a company in 2012 and soon after declared bankruptcy under dubious circumstances.

They received a suspended jail sentence and a reprimand.

It was of little use, because in 2013 she was involved, in a leading role, in a cryptocurrency scam called BigCoin and then BNA.

Both captured a customer base from China and both collapsed upon launch.

That's where Ignatova got the idea for OneCoin.

With remarkable cynicism, she presented herself as the creator of a novel scheme in the sea of ​​cryptocurrencies that began to sprout after Bitcoin and managed to gather an ocean of resources.

A public presentation of hers at Wembley Arena, before a crowd, in which she assured that OneCoin would sweep Bitcoin and the others from the market, is well remembered.

She left there applauded and a millionaire.

Just no.

OneCoin never operated, it was impossible to convert the currency into real money, and according to the authorities, it did not even have a

, that is, the secure data structure that all “crypto” needs to function, and that guarantees that it cannot be counterfeit or misused.

Ignatova's brother Konstanin, one of her main supporters of the scam, was arrested in the US in 2019 and reached a deal with angry OneCoin investors to avoid up to 90 years in prison.

Ruja, however, remains elusive.

Theories about her whereabouts are multiple.

Some give her up for dead;

others think that she had cosmetic surgery and she is still there, hidden and potentially ready to try another hit.

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