A Bulgarian woman dubbed the “Crypto Queen” after she raised billions of dollars in a fraudulent virtual currency scheme was on Thursday placed on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.
The FBI put up a US$100,000 reward for Ruja Ignatova, who disappeared in Greece in October 2017 at about the time US authorities filed a sealed indictment and warrant for her arrest.
The 42-year-old, who is also a German citizen, was behind one of the most notorious scams in the frequently treacherous world of cryptocurrencies.
In 2014, she launched onecoin, ostensibly aiming to replace bitcoin as the world’s leading virtual money.
Tapping a global network to market the coin to friends and family in exchange for their own payouts, she and co-conspirators pulled in at least US$3.4 billion and possibly more than US$4 billion, court documents said.
Officials said that onecoin was not backed by any secured, independent blockchain-type technology as other cryptocurrencies are.
Instead, they said, it was a classic Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are encouraged to find others and then paid out by receipts from later investors.
“Onecoin claimed to have a private blockchain,” FBI special agent Ronald Shimko said in a statement.
“This is in contrast to other virtual currencies, which have a decentralized and public blockchain. In this case, investors were just asked to trust onecoin,” he said.
Ignatova disappeared in 2017 as international investigators began to close in on her group.
“Investigators believe Ignatova may have been tipped off that she was under investigation by US and international authorities,” the FBI said on Thursday. “She traveled from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens, Greece, on October 25, 2017, and has not been seen since.”
On May 11, Europol announced that it had added Ignatova to its most wanted list, and offered a 5,000 euro (US$5,215) reward for information on her whereabouts.
However, on Thursday she was no longer on the list. It was not clear why or when she came off it, and authorities in Europe and the US have not shown evidence of whether she is alive or dead.
Her brother Konstantin Ignatov was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in March 2019 and later pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a deal with US authorities. His sentencing has been delayed for what the US Department of Justice said in court filings was ongoing cooperation in the investigation.
Another partner, Sebastian Greenwood, was detained in Thailand in 2018 and then extradited to the US, where he remains in jail awaiting trial.
Another accomplice, US attorney Mark Scott, was convicted in November 2019 of laundering US$400 million for the group.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.