The vanished Cryptoqueen

On 11 June 2016 an uplifting speech rang out from the stage of London’s Wembley Arena. It was delivered by Ruja Ignatova, founder of OneCoin. To the cheers of a packed crowd she proclaimed the project’s cryptocurrency the “Bitcoin killer”. Cameras panned across rapt faces that seemed to believe every word of their “Cryptoqueen”. About a year later she would vanish without trace with billions of dollars—and later be listed among the world’s most wanted criminals.

ForkLog retraced the biography of the architect of the biggest fraud in cryptocurrency’s history, reconstructed the timeline of her flight and tried to determine what became of her.

Life before OneCoin

Ruja Plamenova Ignatova was born on 30 May 1980 in the Bulgarian city of Ruse. At the age of ten she emigrated with her family to Germany, where she later obtained citizenship. Her schoolteachers described her as exceptionally intelligent but arrogant—despite her charisma, she made no real friends. Judging by what followed, her priorities were the likely reason: she strove for success and fame, putting personal ambition ahead of social ties.

In 2005 Ignatova earned a PhD in international commercial law from the University of Konstanz (Germany). The university’s website confirms this—and notes that her degree was later revoked for “unworthy behaviour”.

According to her own claims and media reports, in 2004 Ignatova completed an LLM in European law and comparative jurisprudence at the University of Oxford. No corroboration exists in independent sources. Like many traces linked to Ignatova, this record was either scrubbed from archives or never existed.

At the time of writing, we located a PDF article about Ignatova apparently authored, judging by its foreword and the information on the site’s home page, by a OneCoin participant or representative.

Her purported stint at McKinsey & Company also cannot be verified. The same article’s author writes that “people are trying to find evidence of her work at these companies” and that “Dr Ruja herself, as far as I know, has not responded to all the accusations against her”. He provides no proof of any collaboration, beyond a link to OneCoin’s defunct website.

From there the mysteries multiplied. According to Questona, in Bulgaria’s Commercial Register Ignatova was listed as a manager at least 30 times and sole owner of no fewer than five firms. Journalists say some of these entities were part of the country’s biggest investment fund, run by Tsvetelina Borislavova, which Ignatova supposedly headed for a time (we found no confirmation).

If so, the future “Cryptoqueen” moved in Bulgaria’s financial and political elite: Borislavova is the former wife of Boyko Borisov (a former prime minister), a prominent businesswoman with ties across banking, the state and politics. Though there is no direct proof of Ignatova’s role in managing the structure, such connections could have helped OneCoin’s durability in Bulgaria.

In 2012, aged 32, Ignatova was caught up in her first scandal. Together with her father she bought a factory in financial distress. According to the press, they tried to ship production equipment to Bulgaria, but the shipment was intercepted. Ignatova was convicted of fraud and given a suspended sentence (the original article was deleted; an archived copy survives).

The first step towards OneCoin was her involvement in the multi-level-marketing scheme BigCoin. According to BehindMLM, there she met Sebastian Greenwood, with whom she would later launch her “project”.

In early 2014 Ignatova founded the One World Foundation. On a deleted page from Bulgaria’s Ministry of Justice (archived here) the organisation’s goals read:

“To create and develop knowledge, skills and competences of children and young people in the field of modern technologies, science, culture, healthcare and civil society, […] to facilitate their active inclusion in public and economic life, to support the fight against unemployment […]”.

According to the document, to achieve its goals the foundation could engage in ancillary commercial activities such as paid consulting, training, conferences and other public events. Some reports suggest the foundation became part of the fraud to come.

The road to a ‘crypto‑throne’

OneCoin launched in August 2014. It was pitched as a high-yield cryptocurrency through which investors could profit not only from price appreciation but also by recruiting new members. From inception through the third quarter of 2016, OneCoin Ltd. took in €3.353bn in sales and booked €2.232bn in profit, according to the US Department of Justice.

Her résumé, charisma and self‑confidence helped at first, but to win the trust of thousands worldwide she needed the aura of a true “Cryptoqueen”. That took not only nerve but talent—of which she had plenty.

Ignatova became a living legend to OneCoin followers: a successful, dazzling woman whose aim was to make everyone in the project rich and happy. She deftly deployed her academic background: at every event and introduction she was presented as Doctor Ruja. The degree, and her supposed time at McKinsey, opened doors to a more educated—and thus wealthier—audience.

A businesswoman who launched a venture in the then‑mysterious realm of cryptocurrency, she drew the attention of conservative audiences.

“She perfectly timed her scheme, exploiting the frenzy of speculation in cryptocurrency’s infancy,” said later Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

She managed to speak at an event organised by The Economist, and in 2014 was named Bulgaria’s “Business Lady of the Year”. At some point prospective investors began seeing at meetings what looked like unequivocal proof of Ignatova’s acclaim: a Forbes magazine cover with her photograph. The cover became another jewel in her crown—so glittering that few thought to test it.

They should have: it later emerged that it was not an editorial cover of the international edition but a paid advertisement insert in Forbes Bulgaria. By then, however, the image of Ignatova alongside the Forbes logo had lodged in people’s minds as a symbol of legitimacy and success.

Ignatova did not merely deceive—she built a system in which people wanted to believe the myth, and critical thinking gave way to emotion, faith and the thirst for instant profit.

She turned herself into a brand. The “Cryptoqueen” was at once remote and close to the crowd: taking the stage like a global star and promising a “financial revolution”, tapping into people’s anxieties.

One of her most flamboyant appearances came at Wembley in London. To fireworks and Alicia Keys’s Girl on Fire, she strode onstage in a red dress and grandly promised that within a couple of years everyone would “forget” the first cryptocurrency.

Her ability to cultivate an air of exception and untouchability created a kind of cult.

“Ignatova had everything that is usually required of a messiah. Among the props—university diplomas, a PhD and a photograph on the cover of Forbes magazine. The doctorate was real, unlike the magazine cover,” noted Eileen Barker, a sociologist and professor at the London School of Economics.

Her talent was not enough by itself; a whole team sustained her image and the project’s. According to one participant, investors were told the “outside world” was hostile and bitcoiners were “haters”. Any dissent—internal or external—was quashed. For instance, after an English‑language Wikipedia entry on the project was created, it was repeatedly altered by supporters who deleted criticism and replaced it with marketing copy.

By 2017 OneCoin was a classic pyramid: money from new entrants fed earlier ones, with no real economic activity or product. At the top sat Ignatova and her lieutenants: Greenwood, her younger brother Konstantin, Frank Schneider and several others. By then the “Cryptoqueen” likely knew the authorities were closing in and was plotting her escape.

Vanished

By late 2016 and early 2017, public discourse increasingly described OneCoin as a pyramid. Regulators in several countries took interest. Investors grew anxious as the launch of the eponymous exchange was repeatedly delayed and dividends failed to materialise.

Reports suggest Ignatova learned from sources that her time was short. On 12 October 2017 the Southern District of New York issued a warrant for her arrest on charges of money laundering and securities fraud. On 25 October Ignatova flew from Sofia to Athens on a Ryanair flight—her last verified appearance in official records.

In the eight years since, neither the FBI nor Europol has located the “Cryptoqueen”. Authorities believe she prepared well: she converted a large share of the stolen funds into cash and jewellery, may have altered her appearance with plastic surgery and used forged documents.

The leading theory is that she fled to a country with no extradition. Some journalists think she may be hiding in Russia—supposedly thanks to ties “with several people and interests connected to the Kremlin”. Her brother Konstantin has said as much.

German police also checked claims made in the documentary Die Kryptoqueen—that the fugitive was in Cape Town. The information did not check out.

Other mooted refuges include South-East Asia, Latin America and the UAE. The latter drew scrutiny not only because her associates tried to move large sums through local banks in autumn 2017, and some senior executives reportedly settled there, but also because of Ignatova’s own ties.

In 2015 she bought a Dubai penthouse overlooking the Palm Jumeirah for $2.7m through a front, Oceana Properties Ltd., records show. Four years later a new owner acquired the property for $1.6m, but who sold it remains unclear. The deal closed after criminal charges had been filed against her.

In February 2023 journalists floated a second theory: that in November 2018 she was murdered aboard a yacht in the Ionian Sea on the orders of Bulgarian crime boss Christoforos Amanatidis, known as Taki.

An informant reportedly told police this, relaying the words of Georgi Vassilev, one of Amanatidis’s confidants. In drink, he blurted out that “Taki took measures to make Ignatova disappear” to “erase traces of his involvement in her fraudulent scheme”. According to Vassilev, the “Cryptoqueen” was killed on the yacht, dismembered and thrown overboard.

There is no hard proof that Ignatova is dead. There are, however, several indications of her ties to the mobster:

• Bulgarian police suspected that Amanatidis used OneCoin to launder money;
• US prosecutors said (without naming him) that the head of security was a major Bulgarian drug trafficker likely involved in Ignatova’s disappearance;
• according to journalist Dimitar Stoyanov, most of Ignatova’s Bulgarian properties are now used by people linked to Taki;
• a source close to her said she may have paid Amanatidis up to €100,000 a month, and Schneider confirmed (without naming names) her ties to “crooks” and “gangsters”.

“I won’t tell you who, because I have a family. […] This is truly serious organised crime,” said Schneider.

Some journalists reckon rumours of her death may simply be a ruse to throw everyone off the scent. The logic is familiar: as a case goes cold, attention fades—and over time the search may grow less active.

What weighs in favour of the murder theory is the sheer length of the silence: no signs of movement, no financial transactions, no sightings of anyone remotely similar. For someone with the sums at Ignatova’s disposal, that is unusual; sooner or later something tends to surface. Even her $15m yacht, named after her daughter, sits unclaimed—the vessel was either not sold off in time or deliberately left aside to avoid attention.

Journalists say the 44‑metre yacht has been moored since 2017 in the port of Sozopol. The annual mooring fee for a 25‑metre vessel is 14,000 leva (over $78,400 at the time of writing). None of the port staff interviewed by Blitz could say who paid for its berth or how.

“I do not have a client Ruja Ignatova. I know which yacht you mean, but it is not in the name of Ruja, it is in the name of a company,” explained one of the harbour employees.

No theory has been confirmed. Investigators proceed on the assumption that Ignatova is alive, and authorities will continue the search until they obtain incontestable proof of her death. Yet eight years on there is still no reliable evidence of her movements—or attempts to tap her assets.

Conclusion

In May 2022 Europol added Ruja Ignatova to its most-wanted list. The FBI followed suit. Information on her whereabouts could net an informant $5m. As of April 2025, nothing is known about the “Cryptoqueen’s” fate.

Ignatova crafted a carefully calculated persona and seized the moment, when crypto was in a phase of explosive growth and light regulation. But OneCoin was made possible not only by her actions—it also required thousands of investors willing to believe in promises of easy profit.

This is not merely the story of someone who built one of the biggest crypto‑pyramids and evaded legal consequences (so far). It is a story about how, in a frenzy and in the absence of critical thinking, trust becomes a vulnerability.