A ‘crypto queen’ listed among FBI’s ten most wanted for scamming investors and disappearing with their millions was allegedly killed on a yacht five years ago.
Bulgarian-born German citizen Dr Ruja Ignatova, 42, made headlines when she invented the cryptocurrency OneCoin, which she marketed worldwide, attracting investors from far afield in 2014.
Backers then ploughed a total of around EUR 4 billion (GBP 3.40 billion) into OneCoin, before Ignatova disappeared and took all the money with her in 2017.
She was last seen in Athens, but last year, on 25th March 2022, the head of the General Directorate of the National Police in Bulgaria, Lyubomir Ivanov, aged 49, was shot in his home.
After his death, investigators found records of taped conversations in his home, and they seized them.
Now two investigative journalists, Dimitar Stoyanov and Atanas Tchobanov from Bulgaria, found transcripts of these taped conversations and published them online.
Ivanov was suspected of working for one of Bulgaria’s greatest drug lords, Hristoforos Amanatidis, also known as Taki.
The documents claimed that Ruja Ignatova, who was reportedly also closely connected to Taki was actually killed on the drug lord’s orders as he wanted to cover up his involvement in the OneCoin affair.
The incident allegedly happened on a yacht in Greece, in November 2018, after which Ignatova’s body was dismembered and thrown into the Ionian Sea, as stated in the documents.
The murder was allegedly carried out by a man named Hristo Hristov, who was detained after he was caught with a large amount of heroin some time ago in the Netherlands.
The Bulgarian Interior Ministry has not confirmed the authenticity of the documents or made any official statements.
Despite speculations, Dr Ignatova remains listed on Interpol and Europol in 194 countries as she reportedly stole over EUR 88 million (GBP 74.9 million) along with her accomplices.
Her whereabouts have remained a subject to speculation ever since she was boarded a plane from the city of Sofia, in Bulgaria, to Athens, in Greece, on 25th October 2017.
German police, who have been trying in vain to track her down since 2020, even claimed that she could have undergone a plastic surgery to change her looks.
Her ex-boyfriend and co-founder of the mastermind of the Ponzi scheme Karl Sebastian Greenwood, 46, is currently serving his five-year-long prison sentence in the USA.
FBI officials said in a statement obtained by Newsflash: “The FBI is offering a reward of up to USD 100,000 (GBP 83,139) for information leading to the arrest of Ruja Ignatova.”
