The US government has offered a reward of up to $5 million for anyone who provides information on OneCoin’s Ruja Ignatova.
Ignatova disappeared in Athens in 2017 after her Ponzi scheme failed.
The US State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova, the self-styled “Cryptoqueen”, who disappeared in Athens in 2017.
The new reward, announced Wednesday, is offered under the State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Reward Program and increases the previous $250,000 reward offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Ignatova was added to the FBI’s 2022 Most Wanted list.
Authorities in Ignatova’s home country of Bulgaria announced on Wednesday that Ignatova will be indicted in absentia for her role in the cryptocurrency-based Ponzi scam, which stole about $4 billion from investors around the world between 2014 and collapse at the beginning of 2017.
OneCoin operated through a network of promoters, who solicited investments in exchange for supposed tokens, but notably did not actually involve any cryptocurrency: OneCoin did not exist on any blockchain, and Ignatova and her team manipulated its perceived value through the automatic generation of new coins.
The State Department called OneCoin “one of the largest global fraud schemes in history.”
In addition to the charges in Bulgaria, Ignatova, a German citizen, faces criminal charges in the United States, Germany and India.
Many of Ignatova’s former OneCoin associates were sentenced to prison for their roles in the scheme. Last year, OneCoin co-founder Karl Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his crimes, plus $300 million in forfeiture. Two of the lawyers in the scam scheme, Bulgarian Irina Dilkinska and American Mark Scott, were sentenced to prison earlier this year, Dilkinska receiving four years behind bars and Scott getting 10.
Disappearance Notice
Ignatova disappeared shortly after being indicted in the United States in the fall of 2017 and was last seen on a flight from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens.
The FBI has suggested that Ignatova may have altered her appearance with plastic surgery or may be traveling on a German passport to the Middle East or Eastern Europe.
There are also rumors that Ignatova may have been killed. In 2023, a Bulgarian news agency report suggested that, in 2018, Ignatova had been murdered and dismembered on a yacht in the Ionian Sea at the command of a Bulgarian drug lord known as “Taki”, although this report was never been verified.
