A coin sold as a course
On 11 June 2016 Ruja Ignatova walked onto the stage of Wembley Arena in a ball gown and told several thousand people that OneCoin would soon be accepted everywhere. She was a Bulgarian with a German passport, a doctor of law and a former McKinsey consultant (chapter “The Missing Cryptoqueen”).
OneCoin was sold through network marketing. A buyer paid for a package of “educational materials”, from a hundred-odd euros to hundreds of thousands, and got tokens that were supposed to turn into coins later. Money for packages flowed up the chain, and whoever brought in new buyers took a commission. The coin’s price in the personal account kept rising, by as much and as often as the company decided, and there was almost nowhere to sell it for real money (same chapter).
A cryptocurrency without a blockchain
OneCoin had no shared ledger kept by a network, no miners and no open code. The coins were numbers in an ordinary database on the company’s servers, and employees could type in any number they liked (same chapter). The company claimed more than three million members (The Block), and prosecutors in New York say victims around the world put more than $4 billion into it (US Attorney, SDNY).
Investigators later read Ignatova’s correspondence. In one email she listed exit strategies, and the first was to take the money and run and blame someone else (same chapter). How such a scheme lives on new money and dies without it you can watch in the Ponzi simulator.
The flight to Athens
On 25 October 2017 Ignatova boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens, and nobody has seen her in public since. That same month an indictment against her had been filed under seal in the United States (same chapter). On 30 June 2022 the FBI added her to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering (CNBC). In June 2024 the State Department raised its reward for information about her to $5 million (The Block). Bulgarian investigative journalists have reported a theory that she was killed in 2018; nobody has officially confirmed or refuted it (same chapter).
Who went to prison instead
Her brother Konstantin, who took over the company, was arrested at Los Angeles airport in 2019 and pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering. The lawyer Mark Scott, a former partner at a large firm, helped move about $400 million through sham funds and got ten years (same chapter). In September 2023 a federal judge in Manhattan sentenced the co-founder, Sebastian Greenwood, to twenty years in prison; prosecutors said he had earned more than $300 million from coins that were entirely worthless (US Attorney, SDNY).
Sources
US Attorney’s Office, SDNY: OneCoin co-founder sentenced to 20 years (September 2023)
CNBC: FBI adds “Cryptoqueen” to Ten Most Wanted list (June 2022)
The Block: State Department raises the reward for Ruja Ignatova to $5 million (June 2024)
