Who is Ruja Ignatova? US State Department offers $5mn bounty for fugitive ‘Cryptoqueen’

Ignatova, a German citizen born in Bulgaria, was added to the FBI’s most-wanted list in 2022 due to her involvement in money laundering and forgery.

Earlier, the FBI offered a reward of $250,000 and that amount has been boosted now under the State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program.

Bulgaria declares Ignatova will face indictment

In addition, authorities in Ignatova’s home country of Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor declared on Wednesday that she would face an indictment for her involvement in the cryptocurrency ponzi scheme, which defrauded investors worldwide of an estimated $4 billion between 2014 and its early collapse in 2017.

“She will also be charged in absentia in our country, which will allow the start of a procedure for the confiscation of her illegally acquired property,” the official said.

The 43-year-old is charged with marketing a phony cryptocurrency dubbed OneCoin, which was established in Sofia in 2014, and cheating investors out of $4 billion (£3.3 billion).

The US government has termed OneCoin as one of the “biggest fraud schemes” in the global history.

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‘Ignatova may have had plastic surgery’

The FBI has hinted that she might be visiting Greece, the UAE, Russia and Eastern Europe using her German passport and she has altered her looks with plastic surgery.

“Ignatova is believed to travel with armed guards and/or associates. Ignatova may have had plastic surgery or otherwise altered her appearance,” FBI said in a wanted poster of Ignatova, who went missing since late 2017.

Some of Ignatova’s former OneCoin partners received prison sentences due to their involvement in the scam. Karl Greenwood, a co-founder of OneCoin, was awarded a 20-year prison term and $300 million in confiscation last year for his misdeeds.

Irina Dilkinska, a citizen of Bulgaria, and Mark Scott, an American, were two of the fraud project’s attorneys. Dilkinska received a four-year imprisonment, while Scott got a ten-year sentence.

According to reports, Gnatova was last seen on October 25, 2017 on a Ryanair flight, which was scheduled from Sofia to Athens.

Prosecutors claim she fled after tapping her American boyfriend’s apartment and discovering that he was working with the FBI.

There were rumors that the “Godfather” of the Bulgarian mafia ordered her murder.