Enlarge image
Wanted OneCoin inventor Ignatova: Notorious as »crypto queen«
Photo: OneCoin Official / flickr.com
The so-called crypto queen left her last sign of life in the Greek capital Athens.
The dazzling entrepreneur traveled there from Sofia on October 25, 2017 with a low-cost airline.
Even that didn't really suit a woman who otherwise loved pompous appearances and celebrated a lavish lifestyle.
Since then, Ruja Ignatova, who was born in Bulgaria in 1980, went to school in the Black Forest town of Schramberg and did her doctorate in law in Konstanz on Lake Constance, has disappeared without a trace.
Now the public prosecutor's office in Bielefeld and the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia are looking for her.
Target investigators are also on duty, according to a statement on Wednesday.
The entrepreneur who allegedly invented a new digital currency called "OneCoin" and got millions of people around the world to invest in this supposed "Bitcoin killer" is now also one of Europe's "most wanted" , one of the most wanted fugitives.
Interpol wants to search for her in 194 countries via social media.
The investigators' accusation: money laundering and joint fraud in a particularly serious case.
The search call is broadcast on the ZDF program »XY...unsolved« on Wednesday evening.
The really big manhunt pressure.
Finally, many victims will think that with “Dr.
Ruja« and their promises - and fell for them en masse, also in this country.
"Caution!
The wanted person and any accompanying persons could be armed!«
Internationally, the case of the "crypto queen" has been making waves for years.
In the United States, Ignatova was sentenced in absentia in 2019.
Her brother Konstantin, who took over the business after her disappearance, was taken into custody directly at the Los Angeles airport when he tried to enter the country.
The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) considers the fugitive to be dangerous.
"Caution!
The person being searched for and any accompanying persons could be armed! «It says in his appeal with a request for relevant information.
It is likely that she is abroad, possibly with supporters – she could also have "surgically changed" her appearance.
The German authorities have offered a reward of "up to 5,000 euros" for information leading to their capture.
If she is still alive, Ignatova will almost take it as an insult.
With her, it was always about completely different sums.
The German authorities estimate the damage caused by fraud in this country to be “slightly more than 88 million euros”.
The "damage caused worldwide is likely to amount to several billion US dollars," writes the BKA.
According to American court documents, between 2014 and 2016 alone, around four billion dollars flowed into the companies of Ruja and her partners.
The majority came from Chinese investors;
German investors ranked behind, by a considerable distance.
The next volte in the OneCoin saga
The German manhunt is just the next volte in the OneCoin saga that began in 2014.
At the time, together with some of his fellow campaigners, Ignatova invented the story of a new cryptocurrency that was said to be superior to the five-year-old Bitcoin in all respects.
She promised that she would make the OneCoin the
“
market leader
”
among cryptocurrencies – and everyone who got in early would be fabulously rich.
With this story, which she spread on marketing trips through several continents and above all via the Internet, she quickly rose to become a kind of cult figure, along with a faithful following.
In her sometimes spectacular sales shows, at London's Wembley Stadium, for example, Ignatova had herself announced as a
»
creator
«
.
OneCoin will soon be known and used as a means of payment in 195 countries, she assured, and already has two million active users.
"
We want to be number one,
"
they said.
She referred to other cryptocurrencies as
“
Mickey Mouse coins that copy our concept
”
.
In fact, according to their own accounts, the one-coin rate rose steadily from 50 cents to allegedly 29.95 euros in 2019.
The entrepreneur and her brother adapted their lifestyle to the new wealth: In order to manage their assets, Ignatova founded their own family office in the posh London district of Knightsbridge, which is used by the ultra-rich.
Among other things, Ignatova invested in a luxury resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and bought a motor yacht.
At the peak of her purported crypto career, Ignatova hosted a 36th birthday party at London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
She pulled up in a Rolls
-
Royce, wore a long green robe with a low neckline and enthusiastically accepted the homage of her guests over champagne and sushi.
A three-tiered golden cake was served, with a crown for the
»
crypto queen
«
on it .
Video recordings from the party look like excerpts from a James Bond film.
"Let's take the money and leave"
In fact, OneCoin was never a true cryptocurrency with independent pricing.
The system, which Ignatova and a growing number of fellow campaigners turned on to investors in Asia, Africa and Europe, was more like classic network marketing: anyone who successfully talked gullible people into a training package received a commission.
And if one's own customer advertised additional users, one collected a few percentage points.
The wanted person is suspected of being "the driving force and intellectual inventor of the supposed cryptocurrency 'OneCoin' that prompted investors worldwide to invest in this actually worthless currency," according to one of the current manhunt calls.
The investors were deceived about the technical background of the so-called "mining".
In 2019, US prosecutors had already spoken of a “multi-billion dollar pyramid scheme involving a fraudulent cryptocurrency”.
They quoted an email Ignatova sent to a co-founder, in which she said she wrote about her "exit strategy": "Let's take the money and leave and blame someone else."
Ignatova was also wanted in Frankfurt am Main
About the whereabouts of »Dr.
Ruja," who gave birth to a daughter in 2016, has been the subject of much speculation since her disappearance nearly five years ago.
Sometimes it is said that she was received in Athens by Russian-speaking men, sometimes there is speculation about mafia connections and complex facial operations.
For their podcast series “The Missing Cryptoqueen”, BBC reporters went in search of clues to Frankfurt am Main, where Ignatova had family ties.
Interlocutors claimed to the British journalists that they had actually come close to the wanted person in Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, cheated investors around the world continue to hope to one day see some of their investments back.
Since last September, proceedings against three alleged helpers have been going on at the Münster Regional Court – an accused couple is said to have sold training packages through their company and passed on 320 million euros to Ignatova.
All three defendants deny the allegations.
If she is still alive and actually found, Ruja Ignatova could have some upside - ironically thanks to real cryptocurrencies.
A lawyer for OneCoin victims believes that documents can be used to prove that
"
Dr.
Ruja
«
sold a OneCoin branch in Abu Dhabi in 2015 and received 230,000 Bitcoin on four USB sticks.
At that time, the coins were worth around 50 million dollars – currently it would be seven billion dollars.
