FBI Adds 'Cryptoqueen' Behind Billion-Dollar Fraud Scheme to Most Wanted List
A Bulgarian woman allegedly behind a multi-billion non-existent cryptocurrency called OneCoin has been added to the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list.
On Thursday, the FBI placed Ruja Ignatova on the list in an effort to catch her. US authorities have been seeking her arrest since 2017 on charges that she ran a massive pyramid scheme by duping people into investing in the OneCoin cryptocurrency.
“Throughout the scheme, OneCoin is believed to have defrauded victims out of more than $4 billion,” the FBI said in the announcement(Opens in a new window).
Ignatova allegedly began the scheme around 2014 when she founded OneCoin, which she then promoted to investors across the globe. Ignatova, who called herself the “Cryptoqueen,” went as far as to claim OneCoin would one day replace Bitcoin as the major virtual currency. At the same time, she recruited employees, who worked on commission, to help her hawk OneCoin to potential investors, thus setting up the pyramid scheme.
However, her company actually never created a blockchain to operate OneCoin, according(Opens in a new window) to The BBC. Nevertheless, Ignatova’s scheme managed to dupe numerous people into investing in the company on the promise they’d see huge returns. Records seized(Opens in a new window) from OneCoin show it generating €3.35 billion in sales and €2.2 billion in profits from between 2014 to 2016.
In October 2017, Ignatova disappeared as her company kept delaying a cryptocurrency exchange meant for OneCoin. In the same month, the US issued a warrant for her arrest after a federal grand jury handed down an indictment.
According to the FBI, Ignatova was last seen boarding a flight from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens, Greece. The agency is offering an up to
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