Ruja Ignatova – Cryptoqueen
Ruja Ignatova entered the stage wearing a flowing burgundy ball gown with black sequins. The song “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys blared from the speakers as light beams and fireballs exploded.
“She appears to be a girl, yet she’s a flame. As a beaming Ignatova acknowledged the applauding crowd at London’s Wembley Arena, the song crooned, “She’s so dazzling, she’ll burn your eyes — better turn away.”
In June 2016, bitcoin was an emerging trend, and investors were eager to capitalize. Ignatova referred to herself as the “Cryptoqueen” and presented her company, OneCoin, as a profitable competitor to Bitcoin in the expanding cryptocurrency sector.
“In two years, nobody will talk about Bitcoin anymore,” she remarked amid applause and whistles from investors.
Ignatova boarded an aircraft in Sofia, Bulgaria, and vanished sixteen months later. She hasn’t been seen since.
Authorities allege that OneCoin was a pyramid scam that duped people out of more than $4 billion as Ignatova persuaded investors from the United States and worldwide to invest in her company. OneCoin is one of the largest worldwide fraud schemes ever perpetrated, according to federal officials.
Cryptoqueen is currently one of the FBI’s ten most-wanted fugitives, alleged gang leaders, murderers, and the only woman on that list. She is one of only eleven women of the 529 fugitives on the FBI’s list since 1950.
OneCoin Token: Bitcoin Killer
Ignatova and her colleagues “duped victims out of billions of dollars by boasting that OneCoin would be the ‘Bitcoin killer.'” New York’s top prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, said in a statement last month.
“OneCoins were completely worthless… The whole purpose of (their) lies to induce ordinary people worldwide to part with their hard-earned cash.”
Ignatova and her co-founder, Greenwood, began pitching OneCoin to investors in Europe, New York, and around the world in 2014. According to a federal indictment, they conducted online webinars and conferences where they pushed potential investors to deposit monies in an account that would facilitate the purchase of OneCoin packages.
According to U.S. authorities, OneCoin functioned as a multilevel marketing network in which investors got commissions for soliciting others to purchase bitcoin packages. The packages catered to various income levels, from “beginner” to “billionaire trader.”
According to court documents, Ignatova and her colleagues promised customers a fivefold or even tenfold return on their investment.
A purchasing craze ensued. Investors paid OneCoin more than $4 billion during the fourth quarters of 2014 and 2016, according to information obtained by federal prosecutors throughout their investigation. U.S. investors contributed approximately $50 million, according to court records.
According to court records, the façade began to fracture in 2016 when investors had difficulty selling their OneCoins to recuperate their initial deposits.
Online, rumors began to circulate that the company was a hoax. The media began to pose questions. International and U.S. government investigators joined the investigation.
What happened to Ignatova’s marriage is unclear. However, according to the FBI, she realized OneCoin was being probed after she bugged her American boyfriend’s residence. She discovered he collaborated with a federal investigation into her company’s operations.
Conclusion
In October 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Ignatova with one crime of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each count carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. She was additionally charged with one count of securities fraud conspiracy, which carries a possible five-year sentence. A New York federal judge issued an arrest order for her.
