The FBI has listed Ruja Ignatova, known as the “Queen of Cryptocurrencies”, as one of the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” on the list of alleged perpetrators of a massive fraud that has affected millions of investors worldwide.
Ruja Ignatova, 42, was last seen traveling in October 2017 from Sofia, Bulgaria to Athens, Greece. To this day, he is the chairman of OneCoin, a company based in Bulgaria.
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $ 100,000 (approximately € 96,000) for information leading to his arrest. She is the only woman on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list of “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives”.
Federal investigators accuse the fugitive of using a scheme to defraud victims of more than $ 4 billion.
In 2014, OneCoin cryptocurrency buyers began paying commissions if they sold the e-currency to more people.
But FBI agents claim that OneCoin is worthless and that the risk is never protected by the “blockchain” technology used by other cryptocurrencies. According to the FBI, this is, at heart, a Ponzi scheme disguised as a cryptocurrency buying and selling business.
The Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent pyramid scheme that promises investors extraordinary returns.
In 2019, Ruja Ignatova was charged with eight counts, including bank fraud and bond fraud.
“Using the frantic speculation of the early days of cryptocurrency, he took his plan at the right time,” Manhattan federal attorney Damien Williams underlined.