As of Wednesday, Ruja Ignatova, the originator of the Ponzi scheme OneCoin, was added to Europe’s most wanted fugitives list.
Ignatova is best known as the founder of OneCoin, one of the greatest cryptocurrency hoaxes in history and the subject of the BBC audio series “The Missing Cryptoqueen.” She’s now on Europol’s most wanted list, accused of being the “driving force and intellectual originator” of OneCoin, which “inspired people all over the world to invest in this absolutely worthless currency,” according to officials.
OneCoin’s business model was based on providing educational bitcoin trading packages to its members, who were rewarded with commissions if they sold them to new members. At the pinnacle of the scheme, OneCoin claimed to have a membership of up to 3 million people, including victims from all around the world.
As a result, the leaders of OneCoin were charged with wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering by US authorities in the Southern District of New York in 2019. Ruja Ignatova and her brother, Konstantin Ignatov, as well as Mark Scott, were among those involved.
Ruga Ignatova has been at large since Konstantin Ignatov was arrested in March 2019 and Scott was arrested in September 2018.
The addition of Ignatova to Europe’s most wanted list, as well as a financial reward of €5,000 (about $5,250) for information on her whereabouts, broadens the scope of the search and raises the chances of her being apprehended.
In 2019, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Scott of guilt, but Ignatov agreed to a plea deal in the same year, ensuring that he would not face any further criminal charges.
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