Ruja Ignatova entered the room wearing a burgundy ball gown with flowing black glitter. Fireballs erupted, light beams flashed, and "Girl on Fire" by Alicia Keys played over the speakers.
"She appears to be a girl, but she is a flame. As Ignatova thanked the jubilant crowd at London's Wembley Arena, the song crooned, "So bright, she can burn your eyes - better look the other way."
That occurred in June 2016, when investors were rushing to capitalize on the emergence of the cryptocurrency industry. Ignatova referred to herself as the "Cryptoqueen" and promoted OneCoin as Bitcoin's profitable alternative in the expanding cryptocurrency industry.
She predicted that in two years, nobody will be talking about bitcoin any longer as investors cheered and whistled.
Ignatova took a flight in Sofia, Bulgaria, and left town sixteen months later. Since then, no one has seen her.
Authorities claim that OneCoin was a pyramid scheme that defrauded investors out of more than $4 billion while Ignatova persuaded investors in the US and around the world to invest large sums of money in her company. OneCoin is one of the biggest global fraud schemes ever, according to federal officials.
The only woman currently on the FBI's list of the ten most wanted fugitives is Ruja Ignatova.. |
She is currently the only woman on the FBI's list of the ten most wanted fugitives, which also includes alleged gang leaders and murderers. She is one of 11 women out of the 529 fugitives the FBI has listed since it began keeping track of them in 1950.
In a statement last month, US Attorney Damian Williams, the top prosecutor in New York, claimed that Ignatova and her associates "coined unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars, claiming that OneCoin would be the 'Bitcoin killer'."
In reality, OneCoins had no value at all. Their lies were created with the sole intention of convincing regular people to part with their hard-earned money.
According to court documents, she was aware of the scam right away.
Ignatova's face has been prominently displayed on the FBI website and in numerous international news outlets ever since she vanished in October 2017. Additionally, she is among the most sought fugitives in Europe.
Ignatova is thought to travel with armed guards and/or associates, according to the statement at the bottom of her FBI wanted poster. Ignatova might have changed her appearance through plastic surgery or another method.
According to the FBI, it chooses fugitives for the list based on the breadth of their criminal histories and potential for danger. In order to benefit the most from the program's widespread publicity, it also favors fugitives who are less well-known.
Beyond court documents from the US Department of Justice, which did not list an attorney for Ignatova, the bureau declined to give CNN any additional information. This case is under investigation right now. Beyond what has already been made public, we are unable to comment, according to Daniel Crifo, a spokesman for the FBI office in New York.
But court records provide a startling account of how Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, another co-founder of OneCoin, allegedly knew from the beginning that their ambitious project was a Ponzi scheme.
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IRS Special Agent John R. Tafur stated in a statement that "the cryptocurrency OneCoin was established for the sole purpose of defrauding investors."