Who was the 'Crypto Queen'? - And how did she dodge justice?
A mega $4 billion scam: how a woman from the Black Forest became one of the world's most wanted criminals.
A mega $4 billion scam: that's how a woman from the Black Forest became one of the world's most wanted criminals.
Between 2014 and 2017, Ruja Ignatova raised more than four billion US dollars from investors worldwide with OneCoin. Then she fled and has not been seen since. Except in police photos.
OneCoin is the biggest crypto scam of all time. With wild parties in Bulgaria and London. With rooms full of money and gullible customers around the world. Europol and the FBI added Ruja Ignatova to their lists of the world's most wanted criminals in June 2022, alongside serial killers, terrorists, and drug cartel bosses. But so far, no trace of the billionaire, born in 1980 in Bulgaria and raised in the Black Forest.
Criminal authorities worldwide are prosecuting OneCoin supporters. Investigative journalists follow her to the far corners of the globe. For years more and more shocking details have come to light about one of the biggest frauds of the 21st century. They paint a picture of failing authorities and draw comparisons to the Wirecard scandal.
At promotional events, the "crypto queen" markets OneCoin as the "Bitcoin killer." In private she talks about the "Trashy Coin." Because in reality the promise of the "future of money" exists only on paper. OneCoin is a classic pyramid scheme. And it would grow into an empire by 2016.
Worldwide, 3.5 million people believed in the OneCoin story. Many investors worship the "crypto queen" almost cult-like. Ruja Ignatova makes these people millionaires. At least, that’s what they believe, until the glass shatters into more than 1,000 pieces.
The dramatic end of the Crypto Queen
The final collapse of the OneCoin empire begins in late 2017 with an act of jealousy. Ruja Ignatova suspects her partner of betraying her. Her brother rents an apartment under his own in Florida and a hole is drilled in the floor to listen in. What they discover is a different kind of betrayal: her partner works for the FBI.
Who was that woman and how did she manage to persuade so many people about OneCoin? How did she dodge international criminal authorities and where is the "Crypto Queen" today?
