FBI offers $5m reward for most wanted fugitive 'Cryptoqueen' Ruja Ignatova
27 June 2024, 15:50 | Updated: 27 June 2024, 15:57
The FBI has issued a $5m reward for information leading to the arrest of one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.
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Ruja Ignatova, aka the ‘Missing Cryptoqueen’ is wanted for orchestrating a $4.5bn cryptocurrency scam.
She fled authorities in 2017 after an investigation into her began closing in and an arrest warrant was issued.
She has been on the FBI most wanted list since 2022 for fraud and money laundering offences.
Ignatova, 43, is accused of defrauding investors out of £3.3bn by selling a fake cryptocurrency called OneCoin.
The scam was described as “one of the largest global fraud schemes in history.”
The FBI wanted poster states: “"Ignatova is believed to travel with armed guards and/or associates. Ignatova may have had plastic surgery or otherwise altered her appearance.”
The FBI believes she could be using a German passport to travel to countries such as the UAE, Russia, Greece and Eastern Europe.
She is last known to have taken a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens on October 25 2017.
The FBI has previously said she escaped with “a tremendous amount of cash” that could buy her “a lot of friends.”
There is some speculation she may have been murdered on the orders of the Bulgarian mafia.
Last year, OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay back £237m to investors.
