The 42-year-old Bulgarian woman disappeared in 2017 after defrauding her victims of nearly $4 billion. All had invested in his “revolutionary” digital currency called OneCoin.
Since June 30, Ruja Ignatova, included in the list of the most wanted people in the USA, has become “public enemy number 1” of the FBI. In 2017, this 42-year-old Bulgarian woman, the founder of a cryptocurrency project called OneCoin, flew to Greece, leaving behind millions of victims. Now the domestic intelligence services are offering up to $100,000 to anyone who can find the fugitive. His crazy story is even set to be adapted for the big screen, as Hollywood studio MGM recently announced, starring actress Kate Winslet. Back to financial disaster.
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“The Bitcoin Killer”
His entry into the world of cyber money began in 2014. Ruja Ignatova, a doctorate in law from the University of Oxford and a former consultant at the American consulting firm McKinsey, decided to go it alone, creating OneCoin. At that time bitcoin has already won the hearts of many “geeks” who see this new digital currency as a way to get rich. Along with its competitor, OneCoin, a young woman promises her followers a 600% return in just a few months, calling her currency the “Bitcoin Killer”.
“Join the financial revolution. The first transparent cryptocurrency for everyone. To improve the lives of people all over the planet, we provide immediate access to our financial services,” we can then read on his website, which has since been closed. Users want to believe it. From rural Uganda to the suburbs of Glasgow, thousands of insiders are logging in to buy this new digital currency. At the end of 2016, the entrepreneur’s turnover was 3.35 billion dollars.
Unfortunately, OneCoin only sells window dressing. As reported by the BBC, the FBI explains that this financial value is not listed on any exchange platform, is not based on technology. blockchain Decentralized, the foundation of cryptocurrency. So between 2014 and 2016 there are many who, seeing the value of their virtual wallet, try to get their debt back… in vain. And for good reasons. their money ends up not in their personal space, but in the bank account of Ruja Ignatova and her biggest dealers.
The Ponzi pyramid
Because the scammer’s real master stroke is based on his pyramid scheme, much like the Ponzi pyramid, an illegal scheme made famous by the Madoff case. Since 2014, when he started his business, he promised his buyers a commission if they could recruit new members. According to Eileen Barker, an expert on sectarian movements at the London School of Economics. BBC:Ruja Ignatova takes on the air of an economics guru, speaks of “family” to mean her “club”, which today some assimilate into the “millennial sect”. “People think they’re part of a big project and invested in something that’s going to change the world, and it’s almost impossible to get them to admit they were wrong,” the expert explained to the news channel on July 5.
But in 2017, when buyers want to withdraw their bids, Ruja Ignatova’s building cracks. Faced with complaints from many buyers in the United Kingdom, the Scottish police are the first to take matters into their own hands. Almost 25 countries will follow, including France, Germany and Bulgaria. As reported in a lengthy investigation by the French media Street press , “OneCoin” club even threatens its victims. “[Un recruteur haut placé] advised me to take care of my and my son’s health”, reports the eyewitness of the site. The American explains that he received a photo of a hand with severed fingers. Another gets a photo of his home and loved ones, captioned simply: “Do you miss them?”
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Shell companies
Then many testify on the condition of anonymity. When journalists are interested in the “scam of the century”, OneCoin makes headlines. Cornered, Ruja Ignatova sets up shell companies to launder her money. Among them is IMS International Marketing Services GmbH, which is based in Europe, but also in Singapore, England and even Tanzania. Despite everything, the circle is tightening around OneCoin. One day in February 2017, as the businesswoman attended a conference in Lisbon to present her currency’s impressive results, Germany became the first country to ban its marketing.
Under pressure, Ruja Ignatova decided to flee in the same year and flew to Greece, bound for Athens. That was the last time we saw him. Since then, there has been no shortage of theories to explain the disappearance of the fraudster of the century. He is sometimes believed to be dead, killed by members of organized crime with whom he formed ties to launder his fraudulent money. Sometimes, we think of him on a paradise island under a false identity in the sun. “Our best guess is that he’s sailing in the Mediterranean, specifically in Bulgaria,” said investigative journalist and book author Jamie Bartlett. The Missing Crypt Queenin the columns of a Belgian daily newspaper The Echo: .
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Going to investigate Ruja Ignatova’s tracks, Jamie Bartlett would indeed find her $6.9 million yacht in Sozopol, Bulgaria. According to him, the fraudster also owns a luxury house in Dubai. If he hasn’t been found yet, his brother Konstantin Ignatov, an active member of the OneCoin project, was arrested at the same time for fraud and money laundering. Facing several decades in prison, he pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing next August.
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Source: Le Figaro
