Tech
CryptoQueen’s Missing Bounty Increased to $5M: Woman Ran $4.5B Crypto Ponzi Scam, FBI Says
BBC News reports that the FBI has increased the bounty on missing CryptoQueen Dr. Ruja Ignatova to $5 million. The German-born Bulgarian national Ignatova disappeared in 2017 after a federal arrest warrant was issued. She is charged with wire fraud, money laundering, and related crimes while running a Ponzi scheme called OneCoin and defrauding victims of over $4 billion.
OneCoin wasn’t even a cryptocurrency, according to cryptocurrency investor sites like CoinDesk. Instead, it was a Ponzi scheme that was riding the wave of investor enthusiasm during the height of the cryptocurrency craze. There was no blockchain technology behind OneCoin, with its functionality opaque and managed internally. Like any Ponzi scheme, existing investors were incentivized to bring in fresh blood, raising billions in capital before the fraud was exposed.
After Ignatova’s first disappearance in 2017, the FBI issued an arrest warrant and placed a $100,000 reward. In 2022, the CryptoQueen reached The FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Listand the reward has risen to $250,000. As the headline suggests, helpful investigators can now dream of a hefty $5 million check, as Ignatova’s case has qualified for the U.S. State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Reward Program.
(Image credit: FBI Most Wanted)
Dr. Ignatova, the CryptoQueen, has become the only woman on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list. Judging by the size of her bounty, her notoriety now ranks alongside fugitives such as European and Russian drug cartel bosses and even the head of the international criminal gang MS-13.
The missing CryptoQueen also has underworld ties. She doesn’t seem like your typical tech nerd, with her alleged ties to the Bulgarian underworld, the country where OneCoin originated and operated.
A BBC podcast hosted by Jamie Bartlett picked up the Missing CryptoQueen story shortly before the bounty was increased twentyfold. Bartlett seems to think the massive bounty increase is a good idea. “$100,000 wouldn’t convince a junior member of a crime syndicate or a personal bodyguard to call the FBI hotline – it’s too risky. But $5 million might,” the podcaster said. “We’ll probably know within a few weeks if it’s worked.”
However, there is a terrible truth that anyone interested in the $5 million must face. Ignatova may be dead, so any reward for her “arrest and/or conviction” may not be valid. There are rumors that the CryptoQueen did not simply die of natural causes or an accident, but was murdered by the alleged Bulgarian mafia boss involved in her disappearance. Amateur sleuths, please be careful out there.