CRYPTO CROOK: Most wanted woman in world stole $5.75 billion from investors

Article content

Like many big business B.S. artists, Dr. Ruja Ignatova allegedly promised to make her disciples wildly wealthy.

Article content

The Bulgarian crypto queen earned millions of followers.

And then, in 2017, she vanished.

Now, she is the most wanted woman in the world after allegedly ripping off her followers for an estimated $5.75 billion. The FBI has charged her in absentia with a massive cryptocurrency fraud that hit people in 175 countries.

Ten years after her vanishing act, the good doctor’s disappearance is cold as a cucumber.

Now, according to the Daily Mail, a BBC News probe has brought more answers to Ignatova’s disappearance — including her eventual fate. The Panorama program asks: Did she run away with the dough, or was she iced by her Eastern European mafia protectors?

Ignatova disappeared in October 2017 after skipping a Lisbon meeting with promoters. By then, critics and investigators were pealing away the pungent onion that was her alleged scam.

Article content

Article content

An Oxford graduate, the Crypto Queen was confident, well-dressed and her OneCoin supporters swallowed her narrative hook, line and sinker, according to authorities. Millions bought in, buying the world-changing online currency.

And like a carnival huckster, Ignatova is accused of being in the centre ring with OneCoin launching a tune called Ruja’s Revolution. Experts claim Ignatova took advantage of the public’s decimated trust in financial institutions following the 2008 global financial crisis.

By the time she disappeared, investors were getting nervous.

On Monday, BBC One aired, The Missing Cryptoqueen: Dead or Alive? Did Ignatova flee with the dough, or did mobsters take her off the board?

Some experts were likening Ignatova’s followers to cult members, but none of her promises were true. The value of their investments was allegedly “just a number that someone in an office in Bulgaria had made up and could delete just as easily.”

Article content

On the day she disappeared, Ignatova and a bodyguard got on a plane in Bulgaria and flew to Athens. He returned. She did not.

Shortly after, she was charged in the U.S. with securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The feds called OneCoin “an old-school pyramid scheme on a new-school platform.”

After she vanished, the Crypto Queen’s brother Konstantin took over. He was later arrested and pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud and one count of money laundering in 2019. He was jailed for 34 months.

When BBC reporters landed in Bulgaria, they were warned about pursuing the story. Others were afraid to talk to the broadcaster.

Local reporters have linked Ignatova to Bulgaria’s alleged crime boss, Christoforos Amanatidis. They also unearthed documents that claimed the mob boss had Ignatova iced in November 2018.

Former mafia members told the BBC that the alleged scam artist was murdered near Greece, dismembered and dumped into the sea for “knowing too much.”

The Missing Cryptoqueen: Dead or Alive? is on the BBC World Service YouTube channel now.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun

Article content