Image source, Shutterstock

Image caption Ruja Ignatova has not been seen since taking a flight from Sofia to Athens in October 2017Article information

• Author, BBC Eye Investigations, Panorama team and The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast
• Function, BBC World Service and BBC News

• June 3, 2024

In September 2019, a BBC podcast began reporting the extraordinary story of Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian woman wanted by the FBI after scamming investors out of $4.5 billion (£3.54 billion) through her cryptocurrency fake, before disappearing into thin air.

Now we follow his trail to try to discover his fate. BBC Eye Investigations and Panorama looked into her close ties to an alleged Bulgarian organized crime boss and allegations she was brutally murdered. Did Ignatova enjoy the billions stolen or was she killed by the very people paid to protect her?

Oxford University graduate Ruja Ignatova was born in Bulgaria and raised in Germany, pursuing a successful career in finance before launching the OneCoin cryptocurrency in 2014.

Ignatova convinced millions of people around the world to invest in OneCoin, promising to eclipse the kind of huge returns seen by early Bitcoin investors.

But in reality, Ignatova – known to many as Dr. Ruja – created a cleverly disguised investment fraud without the digital ledger underlying legitimate cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

When investigators from Germany and the US approached Ignatova in October 2017, she took an early morning Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens, and was never seen again.

Over the past year, BBC World Service’s Eye Investigations and Panorama has been trying to find out more about what happened to her and whether she is alive.

The key to this was establishing who his inner circle was.

Richard Reinhardt, who initiated the OneCoin investigation for the US Internal Revenue Service along with the FBI, told the BBC about a key character that investigators have never mentioned publicly before.

The missing Cryptoqueen: dead or alive?

The CEO of fake cryptocurrency OneCoin, Ruja Ignatova, is the FBI’s most wanted woman. She stole billions and then disappeared. New evidence reveals what may have happened. Is she missing or was she murdered?

The search for Dr. Ruja Ignatova takes an unexpected turn when a story emerges claiming she was murdered. But with Dr. Ruja sightings still coming in, could this be true?

The BBC understands it is the man who was assigned the role of keeping Ms Ignatova safe – Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis, commonly known as Taki.

“We were told that supposedly a major drug lord was in charge of his physical security,” Reinhardt told us in his first interview since retiring at the end of 2023.

“Taki appeared more than once, it wasn’t something unique. That was a recurring theme.”

This was in line with information we already had – US government lawyers had said in 2019 that Ms Ignatova’s head of security was a major organized crime figure in Bulgaria, but had not named him.

“We have evidence that a very significant, if not the most prolific, drug trafficker of all time in Bulgaria was closely linked to OneCoin – served as [Ruja Ignatova’s] personal security guard,” said an assistant lawyer.

This was the same “chief of security” who another U.S. government lawyer said was “involved in the disappearance” of Ms. Ignatova in court a day earlier.

Image caption Richard Reinhardt, the former IRS investigator who opened the OneCoin case

According to Reinhardt, Ignatova was a much more sophisticated criminal than most people realize.

“This is like a white-collar criminal combined with a drug dealer or a mobster on steroids.”

This theory appears to be supported by leaked Europol documents, seen by the BBC, which show that – before Ignatova’s disappearance in 2017 – Bulgarian police had established links between her and Taki.

In the documents, police suspect that Taki is using OneCoin’s financial network to launder proceeds from drug trafficking.

In his native Bulgaria, Taki has an almost mythical status – an El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. He is widely suspected of being the head of a Bulgarian organized crime organization and a prolific drug smuggler. He and his associates were investigated there for armed robbery, drug smuggling and murder, but he was never successfully prosecuted for anything.

Image caption: At the same time, Taki was the subject of an Interpol “Red Notice”

“When we talk about Taki, he is the boss of the mafia in Bulgaria. He is extremely powerful,” says a former Bulgarian deputy minister, Ivan Hristanov, who in 2022 investigated allegations that Taki ran a criminal network with the help of corrupt officials – and believes this was the case.

“Taki is the ghost. You will never see it. You only hear about him. He is speaking to you through other people. If you don’t listen, you will simply disappear from the earth.”

“The only person who can protect her [Ignatova] of all these investigations, including by foreign agencies – it was Taki.”

The BBC has written to the Bulgarian government about allegations regarding corrupt officials. Did not answer. The Public Prosecutor’s Office in the capital, Sofia, states that it “does not cover up crimes and people who possibly committed crimes”.

Taki is now believed to live in Dubai, where Ignatova purchased a luxury penthouse and where her bank accounts received tens of millions of dollars from the OneCoin fraud.

While it is not known how Taki and Ignatova met, or whether he was involved with OneCoin from the beginning, several sources say they had a close personal relationship and that he was her daughter’s godfather.

A Bulgarian source close to Ignatova told the BBC she may have paid Taki up to 100,000 euros a month for protection.

There appear to be other financial ties between Ignatova and Taki.

Europol documents mention a complex agreement for the sale of land on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast that links one of Ignatova’s companies to Taki’s wife.

The secret police documents were passed on to the BBC by Frank Schneider, a former spy and advisor to Ignatova, who has since disappeared.

He told us that his old boss worked with “con artists” and “gangsters.”

Image caption: A few months after speaking to us, Frank Schneider also disappeared

When we interviewed Mr. Schneider at his home in France, he was under house arrest, awaiting extradition to the US in connection with the OneCoin scam. He was not, however, prepared to reveal names.

“I’m not going to say who it is, because I have a family… This is a very serious organized crime.”

But in the end, Ignatova’s protector may have become an aggressor.

In 2022, Bulgarian investigative journalist Dimitar Stoyanov and his colleagues at the investigative media outlet bird.bg received a police report that was found in the home of a murdered Bulgarian police officer.

In the document, a police informant details hearing Taki’s drunken brother-in-law say that Ms. Ignatova had been murdered on Taki’s orders in late 2018, and her body was dismembered and dumped on a yacht in the Ionian Sea. Stoyanov says this account is “very, very possible.”

The authenticity of the police document has been confirmed by Bulgarian authorities, and several of Taki’s criminal associates believe the theory that he murdered her is true, says Stoyanov.

However, the BBC was unable to independently verify the claim.

The associates’ justification is that the sought-after Ms. Ignatova became a liability to Taki, who wanted to eliminate her links to the OneCoin fraud.

These associates include Krasimir Kamenov, known as Kuro, wanted by Interpol on murder charges.

Stoyanov says that Kuro told him that he heard Taki discuss his criminal dealings in front of Ignatova, and when Kuro challenged Taki about whether he should do that, Taki replied, “Don’t worry, she’s as good as dead. ”

Kuro also claimed to have spoken to the CIA about Taki, including about the allegation that Taki had ordered the murder of Ms. Ignatova. Sources close to Kuro confirmed to the BBC that this meeting took place in late 2022.

In May 2023, Kuro was murdered in his Cape Town home, along with his wife and two other people who worked for him. South African police are still searching for the killers, but former Bulgarian deputy minister Hristanov believes Kuro’s murder is linked to Taki.

“Certain people had to be removed because they knew too much about Taki.

“It was a kind of public execution that looked more like a declaration. Be careful who you deal with,” he told us.

Since the publication of allegations of Ignatova’s murder, journalist Dimitar Stoyanov says he and his colleagues have faced death threats, forcing him to temporarily leave Bulgaria for the fourth time in his career.

Stoyanov does not claim to know the motive for any alleged murder, but property records show, and eyewitnesses have told him, that since his disappearance, several of his Bulgarian properties are now being used by people linked to Taki.

Image caption, Evidence suggests Ruja Ignatova’s mansions are now being used by people linked to Taki

Taki was never arrested for claiming he ordered Ms. Ignatova’s murder. Her body was never found and investigators say they do not have enough evidence to prosecute.

But former IRS investigator Richard Reinhardt thinks Ignatova is probably dead. While he hasn’t seen any evidence linking her death to Taki, he says it fits with how drug cartels operate.

“There is no honor among thieves… knowing how violent the cartels are, if [Taki] thought she was a threat to him… he would probably kill her rather than get caught.

The BBC has written to Taki’s lawyers about the allegations in this investigation – they have not responded.

In 2022, Ignatova was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list – where she remains to this day.

The BBC team behind The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast has received several sightings and tips about Ms Ignatova’s whereabouts following her alleged murder – including details of a botched police operation in Greece to capture her in 2022.

It could be that the rumors about his death are just another brilliant ploy to throw everyone off the scent.

If that’s the case, as the years go by, it’s likely to become increasingly difficult for her to continue running away.

“At some point it looks like Elvis Presley might still be alive… It’s not very likely,” says Hristanov.

According to Reinhardt, the FBI “not only keeps people in [the] Top ten list for fun.” But they would only remove someone if there was “definitive proof” that they were dead. And given the circumstances, with Ruja Ignatova there may never be.

And that means that, at least for now, the missing Cryptoqueen remains a hunted woman.

If you have information about Dr Ruja Ignatova you can email BBC journalists at cryptoqueen@bbc.co.uk

Fuente