Ruja Ignatova, founder of the crypto pyramid Onecoin, may have been murdered in Greece a year after her disappearance. According to an article, quoting а leaked report from a police informant, the “missing Cryptoqueen” was killed on a yacht in the Ionian Sea more than four years ago.
Murder in the Mediterranean – Another Theory About Onecoin Mastermind’s Fate Circulated
The woman who founded the notorious Ponzi scheme Onecoin has been dead since November, 2018, according to a Bulgarian website called Bureau for Investigative Reporting and Data (Bird.bg). The conclusion is based on evidence obtained during the investigation into last year’s murder of a former top police officer in Sofia.
The ex-head of a criminal police department in the Bulgarian capital was shot in March, 2022. An informant’s report, found in а safe box in his home, suggests that Ruja Ignatova was killed on a yacht in the Ionian Sea, her body dismembered and thrown into the water. The execution was carried out on the order of a drug lord, the publication alleges.
However, in an email responding to a query from Bird, the City Prosecutor’s Office explained that said report does not constitute a document in the context of the Criminal Procedure Code as it’s not signed by a specific person and there is no information about its author.
The correspondence further points out that “the cited sheets of paper” were seized from the residence of a murdered person which makes it impossible to verify the stated circumstances by questioning a witness.
Launched in 2014 as a multi-level-marketing network based on a fake cryptocurrency, Onecoin is believed to have defrauded more than 3 million investors globally of over $4 billion. Ignatova, a Bulgarian-born German national, was last seen on Oct. 25, 2017 at the airport in Athens, where she arrived on a flight from Sofia. This past October, the BBC reported she had been alerted about police investigations.
Dubbed “the missing Cryptoqueen,” Ignatova is wanted by Interpol, Europol, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Previous media reports have also speculated she might have been murdered or that she is still alive and well after changing her appearance through plastic surgery. In July, 2022, the Greek press revealed police had tried to capture Ignatova after receiving information she was in the country.
Her brother and co-founder, Konstantin, was detained in Los Angeles in 2019 and pleaded guilty to Onecoin-related charges while seeking witness protection in the U.S. Karl Sebastian Greenwood, another co-founder who is a citizen of Sweden and the U.K., also pleaded guilty in December 2022. Last week, news came out that Ruja’s former boyfriend, Gilbert Armenta, has been sentenced to five years in prison for his role in laundering proceeds from the scam.
Do you believe in this theory about ‘Cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova’s fate? Share your thoughts on the case in the comments section below.