A woman known as the “missing Cryptoqueen” has been placed on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list accused of defrauding victims out of $4billion.
Ruja Ignatova, a German citizen, disappeared without a trace in late 2017 and she has not been seen since.
Now the FBI is offering a $100,000 (£82,491) reward for information leading to Ignatova’s capture, said the FBI’s assistant director-in-charge in New York Michael Driscoll.
In 2019, she was charged with eight counts including wire fraud and securities fraud for running the Bulgaria-based fake cryptocurrency OneCoin Ltd as a pyramid scheme.
Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said: “She timed her scheme perfectly, capitalising on the frenzied speculation of the early days of cryptocurrency.”
Williams described OneCoin as “one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history.”
The Cryptoqueen made her escape after she uncovered her American boyfriend was cooperating with an FBI probe into OneCoin when she bugged his apartment in 2017, Williams said.
Mysteriously she vanished after she got a flight from Bulgaria to Greece, never to be seen since.
“She left with a tremendous amount of cash,” Driscoll told reporters. “Money can buy a lot of friends, and I would imagine she’s taking advantage of that.”
Ignatova was charged alongside Mark Scott, a former corporate lawyer who prosecutors said laundered around $400 million for OneCoin.
Scott was found guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud following a three-week trial in Manhattan federal court.
Fugitives are added to the most-wanted list when officials believe the public could assist with tracking those individuals down.
