The Federal Bureau of Investigation is adding Ruja Ignatova — the woman known as the “Crypto Queen” — to its list of 10 most wanted fugitives.
What Happened: There will be a press conference today at 11 a.m. at 26 Federal Plaza to announce the addition of Ruja Ignatova, a.k.a. "Cryptoqueen," to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $4 billion through the OneCoin cryptocurrency company
— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) June 30, 2022
Ignatova’s addition to the Top 10 Most Wanted list comes in light of her role in defrauding investors of more than $4 billion in the OneCoin crypto Ponzi scheme.
The Background: OneCoin was created in 2014 with Ignatova at the helm, promising investors that the OneCoin token could be mined and sold for value. The tokens were only tradable on OneCoin’s exchange xcoinx.
In 2016, the company announced it was closing for two weeks of “necessary maintenance” due to a high number of OneCoin miners, but reopened without any significant changes. In January 2017, the exchange shut down abruptly without any notice.
It was later revealed that OneCoin did not exist on the blockchain and the team manipulated its value by generating new tokens. A class action lawsuit was filed by investors in 2019 against the team behind the crypto scam.
Ignatova has reportedly been on the run since 2017 and her whereabouts today remains unknown. She is also on Europe’s Most Wanted list, with Europol offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to her arrest.
BTC Price Action: The crypto market was trading lower at the time of writing, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading at $18,871, down 6.97% over the last 24 hours.
