Ruja Ignatova called herself the “cryptoqueen, the queen of cryptocurrencies”. She told people that she had invented a cryptocurrency that was going to compete with Bitcoin and she managed to persuade many to invest billions of dollars in the supposed creation of it. But in 2017 she disappeared overnight without a trace. British journalist Jamie Bartlett spent months investigating how this woman managed to run such a massive scam and tried to find out where she is hiding.
It was June 2016, when Bulgarian Ruja Ignatova, a 36-year-old businesswoman, took the stage at Wembley Arena, an indoor arena in London, in front of thousands of cheering fans. As usual, she was wearing a pompous ball gown, long diamond earrings, and her signature red lipstick. Without stammering, she promised the crowd that OneCoin was about to become the world’s leading cryptocurrency and that everyone could pay with it everywhere.
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency created in the world and is still the best known and most widely used. In mid-2016, its value increased from a few cents to hundreds of dollars per coin, sparking a frenzy of excitement among investors. Cryptocurrency as an idea was just getting into the crowd. Many people were looking to get involved in what seemed like a strange new opportunity. Ruja promised her audience at Wembley Arena that OneCoin was going to kill Bitcoin. In two years, no one will talk about Bitcoin anymore! she yelled. In all corners of the world, people had already started investing their savings in OneCoin, hoping to be part of this new revolution. A series of leaked documents show that Brits invested more than $30 million in OneCoin in the first six months of 2016, more than US$2 million in a single week, and the amount invested may have increased after Ruja’s great show at Wembley. Ruja was presented as a woman with a brilliant career: she was supposed to have graduated from the prestigious University of Oxford, she had a Ph.D. from the University of Konstanz, and had spent a stint at the respected management consultancy, McKinsey and Company. Between August 2014 and March 2017, more than US$4 billion were invested in dozens of countries. From Pakistan to Brazil, from Hong Kong to Norway, from Canada to Yemen… there were even investors in the Palestinian territories.
After her successful conference in London, Ruja spent months traveling the world selling her vision. A few days in Macau, then in Dubai, before flying to Singapore… she was selling out stadiums and attracting new investors. OneCoin was still growing rapidly, and Ruja was already starting to spend his newfound fortune. He bought multi-million dollar properties in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, and in the Black Sea resort of Sozopol. In her spare time, she would throw parties on her luxury yacht The Davina. At one of the parties, in July 2017, the American pop star Bebe Rexha gave a private concert. Despite the pompous and seemingly successful façade, problems were already brewing. OneCoin continued to delay the opening of the promised exchange that would allow the cryptocurrency to be converted into cash. And investors were increasingly worried.
But this would be resolved in October 2017, at a large meeting of European promoters of OneCoin in Lisbon. The day came and Ruja, who was famous for her punctuality, did not appear. She was already on her way. No one knew why she hadn’t come, one delegate recalls. There were calls and many frantic messages that went unanswered. The OneCoin head office in Sofia also knew nothing. Dr. Ruja had also disappeared. Some feared that the banks had murdered or kidnapped her. She had warned that banks had much to fear from the cryptocurrency revolution. But the truth is that Ruja had gone underground. FBI records presented in court documents in early 2019 indicate that on October 25, 2017, just two weeks after failing to show up in Lisbon, he boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens. She then completely disappeared from the radar. That was the last time anyone saw or heard from her.
It is difficult to know how much money was invested in OneCoin. Leaked documents claim that more than $4 billion was invested between August 2014 and March 2017. More than one person also said the figure could exceed $15 billion. Oliver Bullough, an expert on what he calls Moneyland, the shadowy parallel world where criminals and the super-rich hide their wealth, explains that following the money isn’t as easy as it sounds, because criminals structure their businesses and bank accounts in such a way. way that your assets seem to disappear. They still exist. You can still use them to buy things, to buy political influence and nice houses and yachts. But to someone trying to find them, be it a journalist or a police officer, they are invisible.
It was in early 2019 that US authorities revealed that Ruja had flown to Athens on October 25, 2017. But the question is where did he go next? It has been suggested that there are powerful people protecting her in Bulgaria. Even that she could be in London. Others have said that she was dead, which remains a possibility. Ruja identified various weak points in society and exploited them. Today the FBI is offering $100,000 for information on the fugitive.
