‘Missing CryptoQueen’ Ruja Ignatova Knew of OneCoin Scam Probe Before She Went Missing

Ruja Ignatova, aka the Missing CryptoQueen, who was named by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in its most-wanted list may have been privy to police investigation into her $4bn cryptocurrency fraud before her disappearance, the BBC reported.

Ignatova, a Bulgarian, is wanted for her role in running the OneCoin cryptocurrency scam. The scam was unearthed by Jamie Bartlett and Georgia Catt, on BBC Sounds, on the ‘Missing Cryptoqueen’ podcast in 2019.

The BBC on Thursday said it saw files from Europol meetings which indicate the fugitive was made aware of efforts to arrest her months before her disappearance. Frank Schneider, a trusted adviser to Ignatova, passed the file to the BBC’s The Missing Cryptoqueen team.

Schneider denied the claim to have obtained the documents by himself and said the details were given to him by Ignatova on a USB memory stick. Citing metadata on the file, he said the information was relayed to Ignatova by her contacts in Bulgaria.

Schneider faces extradition to the US for his alleged role in the OneCoin fraud, the BBC report said. Europol officials told the BCC that they are looking into the issue.

Ignatova disappeared in October 2017 after she was tipped off about police investigations into her OneCoin cryptocurrency. She was added to the FBI’s 10 most wanted list in June 2022.

Schneider again spoke to BBC’s Bartlett where he informed that officials from Dubai, Bulgaria, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands along with the FBI, the US Department of Justice and the New York District Attorney attended a meeting named ‘Operation Satellite’ five months before her disappearance.

Schneider in the interview with the BBC said it took hours for Ignatova to obtain the complete rundown and get the minutes of what was said in those meetings as Bulgarian officials also participated in the meeting.

“I can only deduce that it came from the circles that she was in and the connections that she had through a variety of influential personalities,” Schneider was quoted as saying by news agency BBC.

There were attendees from the Bulgarian interior ministry in the March 2017 meeting, the BBC said in its report.

Read the Latest News and Breaking News here