Ruya Ignatova was once called the "Queen of Cryptocurrency" by fans in the circle. On Thursday, local time in the United States, the woman was included in the list of the ten most wanted criminals by FBI, with a reward of $100,000.
Ignatova’s cutting of leeks dates back to 2014, when she founded OneCoin in Bulgaria . According to the official introduction of OneCoin, she holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Konstanz in Bulgaria, a doctorate in from the University of Oxford, and a PhD from the Department of Law at the University of Konstanz. She has served as the CEO and CFO of Bulgaria's largest fund management company, managing The assets are nearly 2 billion yuan.
Relying on the persona she created for herself and wearing these titles, Ignatova traveled around the world to preach. Every time she appeared, she wore valuable jewelry, gorgeous clothes and bright lipstick. Her fanatical followers gave her a resounding name: the crypto queen.
Ignatova claimed in her speech that OneCoin is a cryptocurrency with a limited quantity, uniqueness, no inflation , and cannot be counterfeited. But the truth of the matter is that this is an out-and-out " Ponzi scheme ". Relying on her highly inflammatory preaching and promising high returns, and using pyramid schemes to expand, OneCoin soon swept across the world. Anyone who supports OneCoin is Ignatova's "family." ".
With the trust and support of her "family", Ignatova has made a lot of money. According to BBC statistics, 4 billion yuan was raised in 2016 alone.
Time came to 2017, OneCoin held a grand carnival in Portugal, but Ignatova suddenly disappeared from the world, and Ignatova herself could not be contacted by any contact method. At this time, some of her followers Only then did he realize that he had been deceived.
"Hi, are you willing to join our business plan?" This was the last sentence Ignatova left for everyone on Twitter on May 10, 2017.
The judicial department believes that Ignatova defrauded investors of a total of US$4 billion (approximately RMB 26.8 billion) from 2014 to 2017, and then disappeared.
Industry insiders said that the scale of Ignatova's scam is second only to Wall Street giant scammer Bernard Madoff . This scam involved at least billions of pounds, and people in every corner of the world were bankrupted and their families were destroyed.
Regarding the whereabouts of Ignatova, the FBI stated that the last known whereabouts are that she traveled from Bulgaria to Greece on October 25, 2017, and may then move to other areas. She may use her German passport to travel to Bulgaria, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, and Eastern European countries. The FBI warned that Ignatova is believed to be traveling with an armed escort and may have changed her appearance through plastic surgery or other means.
On the other hand, Ruya Ignatova’s brother Konstantin Ignatov, as the co-founder of the OneCoin pyramid scheme, has admitted to participating in this multi-billion dollar fraud. He signed a confession on October 4, 2019 and currently faces up to 90 years in prison.
It is worth noting that Ignatova’s criminal group also promoted it to China through pyramid schemes, creating the “OneCoin Extraordinary Online MLM Case.”
formed a joint attack force through full cooperation with the public security organs. The public security organs found out in accordance with the law that the "OneCoin" online MLM organization and marketing model involved in the case was established by the German leader Lu. As of May 2018, this MLM organization has developed 7 downlines, 27 fund pool accounts, more than 140 membership levels, more than 2 million registered member accounts in China, and the amount involved has reached more than 15 billion yuan.
These huge amounts of money are aggregated from the bottom level of the pyramid of pyramid schemes to upper-level accounts. They are suspected of evading financial supervision and flowing out of the country and entering foreign accounts, seriously endangering the country's financial security and stability. It is reported that some of the cases handled by the Zhuzhou County Procuratorate involved three downlines of the MLM organization, and nearly 1.7 billion yuan of the amount involved has been recovered.
