Few stories have captivated the world as the saga of Ruja Ignatova, the disappearing founder of the crypto project OneCoin who is also known as the “Cryptoqueen.”
In 2017, Ignatova unexpectedly vanished from thin air, leaving thousands of investors baffled and scrambling to recoup billions of dollars that they poured into OneCoin, which seemed like a legitimate business at the time.
Seven years later, new evidence is casting a light on what could have happened to Ignatova and points to a gruesome end in the hands of the people she trusted would protect her from authorities and angry investors.
The Rise of a Crypto Prophet
In 2014, Dr. Ruja Ignatova seemed destined for greatness. The Bulgarian-born entrepreneur, an Oxford graduate who reportedly worked at the elite consulting firm McKinsey for six years, was poised to become a household name in the up-and-coming crypto industry.
Her vision? OneCoin, a cryptocurrency that she claimed would eclipse Bitcoin’s astronomical rise.
Her pitch was compelling, especially in a world that had experienced the dramatic impact of a global financial crisis that shook the public’s trust in large financial intermediaries including conventional banks and even governments and their fiat currencies.
Also read: What Is a Crypto Rug Pull: How It Works and How to Avoid It
OneCoin promised to be everything Bitcoin was becoming – a safe payment method that could be exchanged and stored safely in a digital form. However, it offered something else: accessibility. Anyone could buy “packages” of the currency with real money and sit on their couch to watch its value climb.
Ignatova was the perfect face for this revolution. Always elegantly dressed and wearing her trademark red lipstick, she made appearances at huge rallies. OneCoin even had its own anthem: “Ruja’s revolution.”
As thousands of people around the world entrusted her with their life savings, she seemed to be living up to her billing as the prophet of a new financial order.
A Dream Built on Sand: Ignatova Rug Pulls $6.3 Billion
The OneCoin dream was built on sand. After a few years, investors started getting antsy as nothing seemed to be happening. By 2016, suspicions were growing that OneCoin wasn’t backed by a blockchain at all – the very technology that was supposed to secure its value and enable its transactions.
As Jamie Bartlett, creator of the BBC podcast “The Missing Cryptoqueen,” would put it, the value was “just a number that someone in an office in Bulgaria had made up and could delete just as easily.”
In October 2017, Ignatova was set to address these and other concerns about the project at a meeting in Lisbon. Investors just wanted to know if they could sell their OneCoin for Euros and were hoping that she would answer their questions at the address.
However, she never appeared. A year later, she was charged in absentia in the United States with securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The US Justice Department’s indictment was severe and shocked the whole community of OneCoin investors. OneCoin was never a real cryptocurrency. There was no blockchain technology or anything similar. It was just a pyramid scheme disguised as blockchain technology.
If you are wondering how so many people got caught up in such a simple and brazen pyramid scheme, you aren’t alone. It’s important to remember that this was long before most people knew anything about cryptocurrency so they didn’t know the red flags to watch out for.
The scale of the fraud was absolutely staggering as authorities revealed that they believed Ignatova ran off with $6.3 billion worth of investments from supporters in some 175 countries. To this date, she remains the FBI’s most wanted woman.
A Dark Twist to the Story: Mafia Ties and Murder Claims
So, did Ruja Ignatova just run away with the money? How has she been able to escape from Interpol and other global law enforcement agencies for so many years?
New evidence suggests that the Cryptoqueen may no longer be among us. For years, BBC’s Bartlett has been following the footprints and rumors concerning Ignatova. One in particular resonated with him and may explain why she seems to have vanished out of thin air.
In a recent groundbreaking investigation, Bartlett uncovered that her disappearance could be related to her ties with the Bulgarian mafia.
A key piece to the puzzle that would explain Ignatova’s fate is a character named Christoforos Amanatidis, who is also known as Taki. This man is reportedly the head of Bulgaria’s organized crime network.
Richard Reinhardt, who began the OneCoin investigation for the US Internal Revenue Service, revealed that Taki was a recurring name in their inquiries. “We were told, allegedly a big-time drug guy was in charge of her physical security,” he told the BBC during an interview.
“Taki came up more than once, it wasn’t like it was a one-off. That was a recurring theme.”
In 2022, documents seized from the house of an assassinated former police officer in Bulgaria contained a major clue: Ruja Ignatova was allegedly killed in November 2018 by Amanatidis. The account claimed that her body was dumped in the Ionian Sea shortly after it was dismembered.
Taki’s associates seemed to confirm the theory and the authenticity of the documents was ultimately confirmed by the country’s officials.
Moreover, BBC obtained further evidence from leaked Europol documents showing that Bulgarian police had established connections between Ignatova and Taki before her disappearance. The police suspected that Taki was using OneCoin’s financial network to launder money from his drug-trafficking operations.
Ivan Hristanov, a former Bulgarian deputy minister, emphasizes Taki’s power: “When we talk about Taki, he’s the head of the mafia in Bulgaria. He’s extremely powerful.”.
Hristanov adds: “You only hear about him. He’s talking to you through other people. If you don’t listen, you just disappear from earth.”
Sources claim that Ignatova paid Taki as much as €100,000 per month to be protected but something may have happened that the protector became aggressor. Taki reportedly lives in Dubai at the moment – a location where Ignatova reportedly bought properties including a luxury penthouse.
OneCoin and Its Legacy in the Crypto World
The recent troubling evidence regarding Ignatova’s fate serves as a clear warning to criminals in the crypto world who believe they can escape consequences after cheating thousands out of their life savings. While most crypto scammers aren’t killed for their actions, more and more are being apprehended by law enforcement globally.
One similar case comes to mind when going through Ignatova’s boom and bust – the Terra blockchain and the meltdown of its flagship stablecoin, Terra USD.
The founder of this project, Do Kwon, was on the run for a few months before eventually being arrested in Montenegro with fake Costa Rican passports. He was recently released by authorities in Montenegro as the country’s Supreme Court is weighing on whether to concede to extradition requests from the United States or South Korea.
He remains confined in Montenegro as his fake passports were taken to prevent him from leaving the country. It has been more than a year since he was arrested in the European country.
According to most estimates, the holders of TerraUSD and LUNA lost a combined total of over $40 billion as a result of Kwon’s negligence and exaggerated claims about the safety of its algorithmic stablecoin.
Jamie Bartlett has previously compared OneCoin with a cult movement. It was not easy for people to decouple from the promise of a financial revolution, considering their deep belief that the project could change the world for good. Unfortunately, they were wrong and thousands lost their money has been lost forever.
Moreover, the findings pertaining to Ruja Ignatova and OneCoin and its ties with organized crime sound a disturbing alarm about the potential entanglement between mobsters in Europe and fraudulent crypto projects.
In fact, some believe that various high-profile crypto scammers have fled to Europe to find refuge with these criminals who offer protection and safe harbor. However, these bad actors may now think things twice before putting their lives in the hands of crooks, considering the rumors surrounding Ignatova’s final destination.
Although the evidence is not conclusive as the absence of a body makes it difficult to close the case, it would explain how Ignatova has managed to remain hidden from authorities across the globe who are eagerly looking for her. We may never know what truly happened unless Taki himself confesses to the crime.