In September 2019 a BBC podcast began reporting on the extraordinary story of Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian lady wished by the FBI after scamming buyers out of $4.5bn (£3.54bn) via her pretend cryptocurrency, earlier than vanishing into skinny air.
Now we have now gone on her path to attempt to uncover her destiny. BBC Eye Investigations and Panorama have checked out her shut ties to a suspected Bulgarian organised crime boss and allegations she was brutally murdered. Did Ms Ignatova benefit from the stolen billions or was she killed by the very individuals paid to guard her?
Oxford University graduate Ruja Ignatova was born in Bulgaria and raised in Germany, pursuing a profitable profession in finance earlier than launching the cryptocurrency OneCoin in 2014.
Ms Ignatova satisfied tens of millions of individuals around the globe to put money into OneCoin, promising to eclipse the form of enormous returns seen by early Bitcoin buyers.
But in actuality, Ms Ignatova – identified to many as Dr Ruja – had created a cleverly-disguised funding fraud, with out the digital report that underlies reliable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
As investigators from Germany and the US closed in on Ms Ignatova in October 2017, she took an early morning Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens, by no means to be seen once more.
For the previous yr, BBC World Service’s Eye Investigations and Panorama have been looking for out extra about what occurred to her, and whether or not she is even alive.
Key to this was establishing who her interior circle was.
Richard Reinhardt, who started the investigation into OneCoin for the US Internal Revenue Service alongside the FBI, informed the BBC a couple of key character investigators have by no means publicly named earlier than.
The Missing Cryptoqueen: Dead or Alive?
CEO of faux cryptocurrency OneCoin, Ruja Ignatova, is the FBI’s most wished lady. She stole billions, then vanished. New proof reveals what could have occurred. Is she lacking or was she murdered?
The seek for Dr Ruja Ignatova takes an sudden flip when a narrative emerges alleging she’s been murdered. But with sightings of Dr Ruja nonetheless coming in, can or not it’s true?
The BBC understands it’s the man who had been given the position of conserving Ms Ignatova protected – Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis, generally often known as Taki.
“We were told, allegedly a big-time drug guy was in charge of her physical security,” Mr Reinhardt informed us in his first interview since retiring in late 2023.
“Taki came up more than once, it wasn’t like it was a one-off. That was a recurring theme.”
This chimed with the data we already had – US authorities legal professionals had stated in 2019 that Ms Ignatova’s head of safety was a significant organised crime determine in Bulgaria however hadn’t named him.
“We do have evidence that a very significant, if not the most prolific, drug trafficker of all time in Bulgaria, was closely linked to OneCoin – served as [Ruja Ignatova’s] personal security guard,” an assistant legal professional stated.
This was the identical “head of security” a special US authorities lawyer stated was “involved in the disappearance” of Ms Ignatova in courtroom a day earlier.
According to Mr Reinhardt, Ms Ignatova was a much more subtle legal than most individuals realise.
“This is like a white-collar criminal combined with a drug trafficker or mafia guy on steroids.”
This concept seems to be supported by leaked Europol paperwork, seen by the BBC, which present that – earlier than Ms Ignatova disappeared in 2017 – Bulgarian police had established connections between her and Taki.
In the paperwork, police suspect Taki of utilizing OneCoin’s monetary community to launder the proceeds of drug trafficking.
In his native Bulgaria, Taki has an virtually legendary standing – an El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. He is extensively suspected of being the top of a Bulgarian organised crime organisation and a prolific drug smuggler. He and his associates have been investigated there for armed theft, drug smuggling and homicide, however he has by no means been efficiently prosecuted for something.
![Interpol Interpol Red Notice for Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/2c0f/live/17e91260-1e8c-11ef-80aa-699d54c46324.jpg.webp)
“When we talk about Taki, he’s the head of the mafia in Bulgaria. He’s extremely powerful,” says a former Bulgarian deputy minister, Ivan Hristanov, who in 2022 investigated allegations Taki ran a legal community with the assistance of corrupt officers – and believes that was the case.
“Taki is the ghost. You’ll never see him. You only hear about him. He’s talking to you through other people. If you don’t listen, you just disappear from earth.”
“The only person who can protect her [Ignatova] from all those investigations, including from foreign agencies – it was Taki.”
The BBC wrote to the Bulgarian authorities in regards to the allegations concerning corrupt officers. It didn’t reply. The prosecutor’s workplace within the capital Sofia says it “does not cover up crimes and persons who have possibly committed crimes”.
Taki is now believed to reside in Dubai, the place Ms Ignatova purchased a luxurious penthouse and the place her financial institution accounts obtained tens of tens of millions of {dollars} from the OneCoin fraud.
While it’s not identified how Taki and Ms Ignatova met, or whether or not he was concerned with OneCoin from the beginning, a number of sources say that they had a detailed private relationship and that he was the godfather to her daughter.
One Bulgarian supply near Ms Ignatova informed the BBC she could have paid Taki as much as €100,000 a month for cover
There look like different monetary ties between Ms Ignatova and Taki.
The Europol paperwork point out a posh deal to promote a plot of land, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, that hyperlinks certainly one of Ms Ignatova’s firms to Taki’s spouse.
The secret police paperwork have been handed to the BBC by Frank Schneider, a former spy and adviser to Ms Ignatova who has since disappeared.
He informed us that his previous boss was working with “crooks” and “gangsters”.
![Frank Schneider, former adviser to Ruja Ignatova](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/fba0/live/4cd4da00-1e8b-11ef-a13a-0b8c563da930.jpg.webp)
When we interviewed Mr Schneider at his residence in France, he was underneath home arrest, awaiting extradition to the US in connection to the OneCoin rip-off. He was not, nonetheless, ready to disclose names.
“I’m not going to tell you who, because I have a family… This is real serious organised crime.”
But ultimately, Ms Ignatova’s protector could have turned aggressor.
In 2022, Bulgarian investigative journalist Dimitar Stoyanov and his colleagues on the investigative information outlet chicken.bg have been handed a police report that had been discovered on the residence of a murdered Bulgarian police officer.
In the doc, a police informant particulars overhearing Taki’s brother-in-law drunkenly saying Ms Ignatova had been murdered on Taki’s orders in late 2018, and her physique dismembered and dumped off a yacht within the Ionian Sea. Mr Stoyanov says this account is “very, very possible”.
The authenticity of the police doc was confirmed by Bulgarian officers, and a number of legal associates of Taki consider the idea he had her murdered to be true, Mr Stoyanov says.
However, the BBC has been unable to independently confirm the declare.
The associates’ rationale being that the wished Ms Ignatova grew to become a legal responsibility to Taki, who wished to remove his hyperlinks to the OneCoin fraud.
Those associates embrace Krasimir Kamenov, often known as Kuro, wished by Interpol on homicide fees.
Mr Stoyanov says Kuro informed him he had heard Taki discussing his legal enterprise in entrance of Ms Ignatova, and when Kuro had challenged Taki on whether or not he must be doing that, Taki had answered: “Don’t worry, she’s as good as dead.”
Kuro had additionally claimed to have talked to the CIA about Taki, together with in regards to the allegation that Taki had ordered Ms Ignatova’s homicide. Sources near Kuro confirmed to the BBC that this assembly passed off in late 2022.
In May 2023, Kuro was assassinated in his Cape Town residence, alongside together with his spouse and two others who labored for him. South African police are nonetheless trying to find the killers, however Bulgarian former deputy minister Hristanov believes Kuro’s homicide is linked to Taki.
“Certain individuals needed to be eliminated as a result of they knew an excessive amount of about Taki.
“It was kind of a public execution that looked more like a statement. Be careful who you deal with,” he informed us.
Since publishing allegations of Ms Ignatova’s homicide, journalist Dimitar Stoyanov says he and his colleagues have confronted dying threats, forcing him to quickly go away Bulgaria for the fourth time in his profession.
Mr Stoyanov doesn’t declare to know a motive for any alleged homicide, however property information present, and eyewitnesses have informed him, that since her disappearance, a variety of her Bulgarian properties are actually being utilized by individuals linked to Taki.
![Mansions that belonged to Ruja Ignatova](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/2243/live/5739df80-1e8c-11ef-baa7-25d483663b8e.jpg.webp)
Taki has by no means been arrested over claims he had Ms Ignatova murdered. Her physique has by no means been discovered and investigators say they don’t have sufficient proof to prosecute him.
But former IRS investigator Richard Reinhardt thinks Ms Ignatova is more likely to be lifeless. Although he has not seen any proof linking her dying to Taki, he says it matches with how medicine cartels function.
“There’s no honour among thieves… knowing how violent cartels are, if [Taki] thought she was a threat to him… he would probably take her out instead of getting caught.”
The BBC wrote to Taki’s legal professionals in regards to the allegations on this investigation – they didn’t reply.
In 2022, Ms Ignatova was positioned on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted checklist – the place she stays immediately.
The BBC crew behind The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast has obtained numerous sightings and tip-offs about Ms Ignatova’s whereabouts after her alleged homicide passed off – together with particulars of an unsuccessful police operation in Greece to catch her in 2022.
It may very well be that rumours of her dying are simply one other good manoeuvre to throw everybody off the scent.
If that’s the case, because the years go by, it’s more likely to develop into more and more troublesome for her to remain on the run.
“At some point it becomes like Elvis Presley might be still alive… It’s not really very likely,” says Mr Hristanov.
According to Mr Reinhardt, the FBI “don’t just keep people in [the] Top Ten list for fun”. But they might solely take away somebody if there was “definitive proof” they have been lifeless. And given the circumstances, with Ruja Ignatova there could by no means be.
And which means, for now at the very least, the lacking Cryptoqueen stays a hunted lady.
If you’ve gotten details about Dr Ruja Ignatova, you may e mail BBC journalists at [email protected]
Source: www.bbc.com