From Crypto Queen to Global Fugitive
OneCoin’s Ruja Ignatova disappeared with billions, leaving a mystery still unsolved.
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For eight years, the world has speculated about the fate of Ruja Ignatova: the so-called “Cryptoqueen” who vanished with billions after pitching OneCoin, a classic Ponzi scheme, leaving behind a trail of lies, lawsuits, and a mystery that refuses to die.
Crypto.news spoke with those who have dug deep into her story to get their take on where she might be now.
Short background
Born in May 1980 in Bulgaria, Ruja Ignatova moved to Germany with her family at the age of ten, settling in Schramberg, Baden-Württemberg. She pursued higher education with distinction, earning a doctorate in private international law from the University of Konstanz in 2005. She even had a brief academic stint at the University of Oxford.
Before rising to infamy as the “Cryptoqueen,” Ignatova worked at McKinsey & Company as a consultant. However, her business ventures soon took a questionable turn. In 2012, she and her father, Plamen Ignatov, were convicted of fraud in Germany.
“The next Bitcoin”
It may not be widely known, but OneCoin wasn’t Ignatova’s first venture into crypto. In 2013, she was involved in a multi-level marketing scam called BigCoin. Reports indicate that BigCoin was launched by John Ng and was based in Hong Kong.
It’s not clear when, but at some point, the project was joined by Ronnie Skold, Sebastian Greenwood, Nigel Allen, and Ruja Ignatova herself. Long story short, BigCoin didn’t make it, as it turned out to be an ordinary Ponzi scheme, operating without a blockchain at all. By 2014, Ignatova left BigCoin to co-found a new venture with Sebastian Greenwood, better known to the world as OneCoin.
Second attempt
While Ruja Ignatova was the mastermind behind OneCoin, Sebastian Greenwood was a key figure in the operations. Unlike Ignatova, though, Greenwood was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
They branded OneCoin as a revolutionary cryptocurrency poised to kill Bitcoin, convincing thousands — if not millions — to invest. They raised an estimated $4 billion globally. Like BigCoin, OneCoin also wasn’t operating on any blockchain, leading to the project’s crash three years after launch.
On the run?
As authorities intensified their investigations, Ignatova vanished. In October 2017, she boarded a flight from Bulgaria to Greece and disappeared. Over the years, theories about her fate have ranged from surgical alterations to mafia assassinations.
Rumors swirl that Ignatova might be on the run, hiding in South Africa, Dubai, or even Russia. Johan von Mirbach, a German documentary filmmaker who directed a 2022 investigative documentary, expresses skepticism about her death and believes she is still alive, despite numerous failed attempts to track her down.
In June 2022, the FBI placed Ignatova on its ten most wanted fugitives list, initially offering a $100,000 reward, which has since grown to $5 million.
New opportunity
In August 2024, London’s High Court issued a worldwide freeze order on assets linked to Ignatova and her associates following revelations that OneCoin promoters had invested in luxury properties in the UAE.
Reports in November 2024 suggested that Ignatova may be hiding in Russia, potentially connected to the Russian government. Journalist Yordan Tsalov confirmed these links through Ignatova’s former security adviser.
Johan von Mirbach comments on the scale of the OneCoin scam, stating that the crypto industry is an “incredible space” for criminals, and anticipates the rise of AI-driven frauds in the future.
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