The FBI recently released a new episode of its hit podcast show “Inside the FBI” (yes, that’s really the name) focused on the Bulgarian-German “Crypto Queen” Ruja Ignatova, best known for being on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for her role in the fraudulent OneCoin project.
Known as “one of the biggest scams in history,” the OneCoin project fleeced unsuspecting investors in a multi-level-marketing crypto fraud all across the globe, duping investors out of $4 billion dollars. OneCoin also claimed to run a private, centralized blockchain where investors could not see transactions — only the founders.
Learn how smart money is playing the crypto game. Subscribe to our premium newsletter – Crypto Investor.
Despite these dubious practices, by 2015, the Crypto Queen and her team were falsely trumpeting an investor base of more than two million users. Ignatova even falsely claimed that “no other cryptocurrency [had] as many users as we do.”
None of the users had any ability to view the public ledger where transactions were logged, otherwise they would have quickly noticed that OneCoin’s promises and wealth acquisition opportunities seemed murky at best.
But Ignatova, a former McKinsey employee and Oxford alum, used her credentials to market herself as a savvy cryptocurrency insider to people who were largely unfamiliar with cryptocurrency and how it worked.
That all crumbled in October 2017, when the 42-year-old was charged with money laundering, wire fraud, and securities fraud….
