“When global authorities tightened their nets, one of Ruja Ignatova’s closest accomplices, Karl Greenwood, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement in the audacious OneCoin fraud scheme.
Ruja Ignatova was an accomplished scholar from the University of Oxford with a prestigious educational background. She mysteriously disappeared in 2017, shortly after being charged in one of the largest cryptocurrency fraud cases ever recorded.
The last trace of Ignatova’s whereabouts was a commercial flight from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens, Greece. Meanwhile, the FBI, recognizing the severity of her crimes, placed her on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since June of last year.
The mystery surrounding Ignatova deepens when considering her impressive academic achievements and professional career. She was a recipient of a prestigious scholarship from the University of Konstanz and later graduated from Oxford with a master’s degree in European Comparative Law. Therefore, her involvement in a massive cryptocurrency fraud scheme is all the more surprising.
Before venturing into the cryptocurrency space, Ignatova held high-ranking positions at the global consulting firm McKinsey and engaged in venture investments in leading banks.
The $4 billion fraud case, OneCoin
Ignatova and Karl Greenwood co-founded OneCoin in 2014. According to prosecutors, OneCoin was a deliberate fraudulent organization from its inception. The duo cleverly promoted this fraudulent cryptocurrency by using a global multi-level marketing strategy, attracting over $4 billion from at least 3.5 million victims.
Ignatova and Greenwood incentivized members by offering commissions for recruiting others, making the fraudulent scheme operate efficiently.
“Greenwood lied to investors about the utility of the tokens included in the packages, claiming they could be used to secure positions in OneCoin’s ‘mining pools,’ described in advertisements as computer hardware used for mining OneCoin. But there were no mining pools, and there was no computer hardware to mine OneCoin,” court documents stated.
What’s concerning is that OneCoin’s value was baseless. Its value was arbitrarily determined by Ignatova and Greenwood rather than being rooted in real market supply and demand.
“OneCoin claimed to have its own ‘blockchain’ or digital ledger specific to OneCoin and recorded historical transactions. However, in reality, OneCoin lacked a genuine blockchain – meaning a public and verifiable blockchain,” court documents noted.
Living a lavish lifestyle, Greenwood accumulated over $300 million from this pyramid scheme by earning a 5% monthly global revenue share from OneCoin. His extravagant lifestyle included luxurious vacations at high-end resorts and extravagant fashion items. He even splurged on a luxury Sunseeker yacht.
Fortunately, justice caught up with Greenwood as he was arrested in Thailand in 2018 and extradited to the United States.
“As the founder and leader of OneCoin, Karl Sebastian Greenwood operated one of the largest fraud schemes ever conceived… Greenwood deceived billions of dollars from unsuspecting victims with… claims that OneCoin would be ‘the killer of Bitcoin.’ In reality, OneCoin was utterly worthless,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
Where is the Crypto Queen, Ruja Ignatova?
Although Greenwood was apprehended, the whereabouts of Ruja Ignatova remain a mystery.
The FBI has offered a substantial reward of $250,000 for valuable information leading to her capture. However, Ignatova’s story is further shrouded in rumors suggesting that she may have undergone plastic surgery or altered her appearance to evade detection.”