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Dr. Ruja Ignatova, also known as the “Cryptoqueen,” has been added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list on Thursday. The agency is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the Bulgarian national, who is wanted for her alleged role in the OneCoin crypto scam.
Ignatova is the founder of a crypto called OneCoin that was launched in 2014, according to CNBC. She allegedly used the crypto in a scheme that defrauded investors of more than $4 billion.
The scam reportedly ran for around three years before Ignatova disappeared in 2017 when US officials signed an arrest warrant, BBC reported. She has not been seen since then and the Europol also added her to its most wanted list last month,
According to investigators, the Bulgarian-based project OneCoin had no blockchain that secured its transactions and that new coins were just minted out of thin air. This is unlike other cryptos such as Bitcoin (BTC) which is secured by a global network of miners that maintain its public ledger, also known as blockchain.
Federal prosecutors described the OneCoin crypto as essentially a Ponzi scheme disguised as a cryptocurrency. When it was launched in 2014, One Coin offered commissions to buyers if they sold the coin to more people.
“She timed her scheme perfectly, capitalising on the frenzied speculation of the early days of cryptocurrency,” Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor Damian Williams said.
With her recent addition, Ignatova became the only woman on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. Williams added that she now “sits side by side on the Top Ten list with cartel leaders, murderers, and terrorists.”
Before going missing, Ignatova was last known to have traveled from Bulgaria to Greece on October 25, 2017. “She may travel on a German passport to the United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, Germany, Russia, Greece, and/or Eastern Europe,” the FBI said.
BBC’s Jamie Bartlett said that Ignatova disappeared with at least $500 million, which might have helped her hide from the law and made it more difficult to track her down. “We also believe she has high quality fake identity documents and has changed her appearance,” he said. He also raised the possibility that Ignatova may no longer be alive.
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