{"id":27962,"date":"2024-06-27T10:06:09","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T14:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=27962"},"modified":"2024-06-27T10:06:09","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T14:06:09","slug":"fbi-offers-5m-reward-in-hunt-for-fugitive-cryptoqueen-ruja-ignatova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/06\/27\/fbi-offers-5m-reward-in-hunt-for-fugitive-cryptoqueen-ruja-ignatova\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI offers $5m reward in hunt for fugitive ‘Cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova"},"content":{"rendered":"

A $5m (\u00a34m) reward is being offered in the hunt for the fugitive “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova.<\/p>\n

Bulgarian-born Ignatova, who has German citizenship, has been on the FBI most-wanted list since 2022 for fraud and money laundering.<\/p>\n

The 43-year-old is accused of defrauding investors out of $4bn (\u00a33.3bn) by selling a fake cryptocurrency called OneCoin, founded in Sofia in 2014.<\/p>\n

The US agency, which has called OneCoin “one of the largest global fraud schemes in history”, previously offered a $100,000 (\u00a382,463) reward for her capture.<\/p>\n

However, that has now been raised to \u00a34m.<\/p>\n

“Ignatova is believed to travel with armed guards and\/or associates. Ignatova may have had plastic surgery or otherwise altered her appearance,” states her FBI wanted poster.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0Bulgaria<\/a><\/strong>‘s chief prosecutor said on Wednesday he would press charges against Ignatova, who disappeared in late 2017.<\/p>\n

“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,” he said.<\/p>\n

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\"Pic:<\/div>
(Image: <\/span>FBI)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The FBI believes she could be using a German passport to travel to countries such as the UAE, Russia, Greece and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

Ignatova’s last known movements were taking a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens on 25 October 2017.<\/p>\n

She fled after bugging a flat belonging to her American boyfriend and learning he was cooperating with the FBI, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

When it\u00a0added her to the most-wanted list<\/a><\/strong>, the FBI said it believed she escaped with a “tremendous amount of cash” – enough to “buy a lot of friends”.<\/p>\n

There has also been speculation she may have been murdered on the orders of the ‘Godfather’ of the Bulgarian mafia.<\/p>\n

OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in US prison last year and ordered to pay back $300m (\u00a3237m).<\/p>\n

The fake cryptocurrency raked in huge amounts using a pyramid scheme model that offered commissions for members to entice others to get involved.<\/p>\n

Source: \u00a0\"Sky<\/a> news.sky.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A $5m (\u00a34m) reward is being offered in the hunt for the fugitive “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova. Bulgarian-born Ignatova, who has German citizenship, has been on the FBI most-wanted list since 2022 for fraud and money […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3,6],"tags":[3225,4686,8622,10467,1172,10466,305,320,6735,10468,8862],"class_list":{"0":"post-27962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"category-world","11":"tag-bulgaria","12":"tag-cryptocurrency","13":"tag-cryptoqueen","14":"tag-fake-cryptocurrency","15":"tag-fbi","16":"tag-fbi-most-wanted","17":"tag-fraud","18":"tag-germany","19":"tag-onecoin","20":"tag-pyramid-scheme","21":"tag-ruja-ignatova","22":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27964,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27962\/revisions\/27964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}