Greek Police Scrambling To Apprehend OneCoin’s ‘Cryptoqueen’
According to media reports, Greek law enforcement has been working on apprehending the founder of the notorious pyramid scheme OneCoin, Ruja Ignatova.
Investigator had received intelligence that the ‘Cryptoqueen’ had not left the country. She had been last seen several years ago when she took a flight to Greece.
‘Cryptoqueen’
The Onecoin crypto pyramid scheme has become infamous and one of its co-founders was Ruja Ignatova that has become the target of the law enforcement authorities in Greece.
It is believed that the last country that Ignatova visited before her disappearance five years ago was Greece.
She had last been seen in 2017, when she had boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, to Greece on October 25th.
The fake crypto project she founded managed to steal $4 billion from investors, which has made her a target of the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Europol, and Interpol.
Greek intelligence
Media reports said that authorities in Greece had received intelligence, both from abroad and locally, about Ignatova’s location, which showed she was in the country and holding meetings with specific people.
A special operation had been launched less than a month earlier by the Hellenic Police (EL.AS.). However, despite actively searching for her, investigators had not been able to confirm the information for apprehending her.
When her name was added to the Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List of the FBI, the agency declared that she must be using a fraudulent passport.
The FBI had also said that she was likely to have visited Russia, Eastern Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Germany, and Bulgaria, where she had had connections.
According to police sources, a dozen countries are working together and actively exchanging case materials to locate her.
The investigation is moving full steam ahead and law enforcement authorities are enhancing their efforts to find her whereabouts.
Global hunt
A $100,000 reward is also being offered by the FBI for any leads that can help in the arrest of the only woman on the top ten list of fugitives.
Europol also listed Ignatova as one of the most wanted criminals in Europe back in May, while a red notice has been issued by Interpol and a monetary reward has also been promised.
The co-founder of Onecoin is now regarded as one of the most enigmatic fraudsters in the world. The 42 year old was born in Bulgaria to Roma parents, but she became a German citizen when she was 10.
In 2005, she did her graduation from the University of Oxford and attended the University of Constance to get a PhD in private international law.
Her shadowy career had kicked off in 2012 when she got convicted for acquiring a company that had gone bankrupt, for which she got a 14-month suspended sentence.
The following year, she had been involved in Big Coin, which turned out to be a multi-level marketing scam and created the Onecoin pyramid scheme in 2014.
She advertised it as a ‘Bitcoin killer’ and promised a ‘financial revolution’ for luring investors.
