Missing Cryptoqueen Ruja Ignatova’s links to Bulgaria underworld

Now now we have gone on her path to attempt to uncover her destiny. BBC Eye Investigations and Panorama have checked out her shut ties to a suspected Bulgarian organised crime boss and allegations she was brutally murdered. Did Ms Ignatova benefit from the stolen billions or was she killed by the very individuals paid to guard her?

Oxford College graduate Ruja Ignatova was born in Bulgaria and raised in Germany, pursuing a profitable profession in finance earlier than launching the cryptocurrency OneCoin in 2014.

Ms Ignatova satisfied tens of millions of individuals all over the world to spend money on OneCoin, promising to eclipse the type of big returns seen by early Bitcoin traders.

However in actuality, Ms Ignatova – identified to many as Dr Ruja – had created a cleverly-disguised funding fraud, with out the digital file that underlies authentic cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

As investigators from Germany and the US closed in on Ms Ignatova in October 2017, she took an early morning Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens, by no means to be seen once more.

For the previous 12 months, BBC World Service’s Eye Investigations and Panorama have been looking for out extra about what occurred to her, and whether or not she is even alive.

Key to this was establishing who her internal circle was.

Richard Reinhardt, who started the investigation into OneCoin for the US Inner Income Service alongside the FBI, instructed the BBC a couple of key character investigators have by no means publicly named earlier than.

The Lacking Cryptoqueen: Useless or Alive?

CEO of faux cryptocurrency OneCoin, Ruja Ignatova, is the FBI’s most wished girl. She stole billions, then vanished. New proof reveals what might have occurred. Is she lacking or was she murdered?

Watch now on BBC iPlayer (UK solely) or on BBC One at 20:00 on Monday 3 June (22:40 in Wales). Exterior of the UK, watch on YouTube

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The BBC understands it’s the man who had been given the position of protecting Ms Ignatova protected – Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis, generally often known as Taki.

“We had been instructed, allegedly a big-time drug man was accountable for her bodily safety,” Mr Reinhardt instructed us in his first interview since retiring in late 2023.

“Taki got here up greater than as soon as, it wasn’t prefer it was a one-off. That was a recurring theme.”

This chimed with the data we already had – US authorities attorneys had stated in 2019 that Ms Ignatova’s head of safety was a serious organised crime determine in Bulgaria however hadn’t named him.

“We do have proof {that a} very important, if not probably the most prolific, drug trafficker of all time in Bulgaria, was intently linked to OneCoin – served as [Ruja Ignatova’s] private safety guard,” an assistant lawyer stated.

This was the identical “head of safety” a distinct US authorities lawyer stated was “concerned within the disappearance” of Ms Ignatova in courtroom a day earlier.

Based on Mr Reinhardt, Ms Ignatova was a much more subtle prison than most individuals realise.

“This is sort of a white-collar prison mixed with a drug trafficker or mafia man on steroids.”

This concept seems to be supported by leaked Europol paperwork, seen by the BBC, which present that – earlier than Ms Ignatova disappeared in 2017 – Bulgarian police had established connections between her and Taki.

Within the paperwork, police suspect Taki of utilizing OneCoin’s monetary community to launder the proceeds of drug trafficking.

In his native Bulgaria, Taki has an virtually legendary standing – an El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. He’s extensively suspected of being the pinnacle of a Bulgarian organised crime organisation and a prolific drug smuggler. He and his associates have been investigated there for armed theft, drug smuggling and homicide, however he has by no means been efficiently prosecuted for something.

“Once we speak about Taki, he’s the pinnacle of the mafia in Bulgaria. He is extraordinarily highly effective,” says a former Bulgarian deputy minister, Ivan Hristanov, who in 2022 investigated allegations Taki ran a prison community with the assistance of corrupt officers – and believes that was the case.

“Taki is the ghost. You may by no means see him. You solely hear about him. He is speaking to you thru different individuals. In the event you do not pay attention, you simply disappear from earth.”

“The one one who can defend her [Ignatova] from all these investigations, together with from international companies – it was Taki.”

The BBC wrote to the Bulgarian authorities concerning the allegations relating to corrupt officers. It didn’t reply. The prosecutor’s workplace within the capital Sofia says it “doesn’t cowl up crimes and individuals who’ve presumably dedicated crimes”.

Taki is now believed to dwell in Dubai, the place Ms Ignatova purchased a luxurious penthouse and the place her financial institution accounts acquired tens of tens of millions of {dollars} from the OneCoin fraud.

Whereas it’s not identified how Taki and Ms Ignatova met, or whether or not he was concerned with OneCoin from the beginning, a number of sources say that they had an in depth private relationship and that he was the godfather to her daughter.

One Bulgarian supply near Ms Ignatova instructed the BBC she might have paid Taki as much as €100,000 a month for cover

There seem like different monetary ties between Ms Ignatova and Taki.

The Europol paperwork point out a posh deal to promote a plot of land, on Bulgaria’s Black Coastline, that hyperlinks one in every of Ms Ignatova’s corporations to Taki’s spouse.

The key police paperwork had been handed to the BBC by Frank Schneider, a former spy and adviser to Ms Ignatova who has since disappeared.

He instructed us that his previous boss was working with “crooks” and “gangsters”.

Once we interviewed Mr Schneider at his residence in France, he was beneath home arrest, awaiting extradition to the US in connection to the OneCoin rip-off. He was not, nevertheless, ready to disclose names.

“I am not going to let you know who, as a result of I’ve a household… That is actual critical organised crime.”

However in the long run, Ms Ignatova’s protector might have turned aggressor.

In 2022, Bulgarian investigative journalist Dimitar Stoyanov and his colleagues on the investigative information outlet chicken.bg had been handed a police report that had been discovered on the residence of a murdered Bulgarian police officer.

Within the doc, a police informant particulars overhearing Taki’s brother-in-law drunkenly saying Ms Ignatova had been murdered on Taki’s orders in late 2018, and her physique dismembered and dumped off a yacht within the Ionian Sea. Mr Stoyanov says this account is “very, very potential”.

The authenticity of the police doc was confirmed by Bulgarian officers, and a number of prison associates of Taki imagine the idea he had her murdered to be true, Mr Stoyanov says.

Nonetheless, the BBC has been unable to independently confirm the declare.

The associates’ rationale being that the wished Ms Ignatova turned a legal responsibility to Taki, who wished to eradicate his hyperlinks to the OneCoin fraud.

These associates embody Krasimir Kamenov, often known as Kuro, wished by Interpol on homicide prices.

Mr Stoyanov says Kuro instructed him he had heard Taki discussing his prison enterprise in entrance of Ms Ignatova, and when Kuro had challenged Taki on whether or not he needs to be doing that, Taki had answered: “Don’t fret, she’s nearly as good as lifeless.”

Kuro had additionally claimed to have talked to the CIA about Taki, together with concerning the allegation that Taki had ordered Ms Ignatova’s homicide. Sources near Kuro confirmed to the BBC that this assembly passed off in late 2022.

In Could 2023, Kuro was assassinated in his Cape City residence, alongside along with his spouse and two others who labored for him. South African police are nonetheless trying to find the killers, however Bulgarian former deputy minister Hristanov believes Kuro’s homicide is linked to Taki.

“Sure individuals needed to be eliminated as a result of they knew an excessive amount of about Taki.

“It was type of a public execution that appeared extra like a press release. Watch out who you take care of,” he instructed us.

Since publishing allegations of Ms Ignatova’s homicide, journalist Dimitar Stoyanov says he and his colleagues have confronted demise threats, forcing him to briefly depart Bulgaria for the fourth time in his profession.

Mr Stoyanov doesn’t declare to know a motive for any alleged homicide, however property information present, and eyewitnesses have instructed him, that since her disappearance, a lot of her Bulgarian properties at the moment are being utilized by individuals related to Taki.

Taki has by no means been arrested over claims he had Ms Ignatova murdered. Her physique has by no means been discovered and investigators say they don’t have sufficient proof to prosecute him.

However former IRS investigator Richard Reinhardt thinks Ms Ignatova is more likely to be lifeless. Though he has not seen any proof linking her demise to Taki, he says it matches with how medicine cartels function.

“There is not any honour amongst thieves… realizing how violent cartels are, if [Taki] thought she was a menace to him… he would in all probability take her out as a substitute of getting caught.”

The BBC wrote to Taki’s attorneys concerning the allegations on this investigation – they didn’t reply.

In 2022, Ms Ignatova was positioned on the FBI’s Ten Most Needed checklist – the place she stays in the present day.

The BBC crew behind The Lacking Cryptoqueen podcast has acquired numerous sightings and tip-offs about Ms Ignatova’s whereabouts after her alleged homicide passed off – together with particulars of an unsuccessful police operation in Greece to catch her in 2022.

It might be that rumours of her demise are simply one other sensible manoeuvre to throw everybody off the scent.

If that’s the case, because the years go by, it’s more likely to change into more and more troublesome for her to remain on the run.

“Sooner or later it turns into like Elvis Presley is perhaps nonetheless alive… It is not likely very probably,” says Mr Hristanov.

Based on Mr Reinhardt, the FBI “do not simply maintain individuals in [the] Prime Ten checklist for enjoyable”. However they might solely take away somebody if there was “definitive proof” they had been lifeless. And given the circumstances, with Ruja Ignatova there might by no means be.

And meaning, for now no less than, the lacking Cryptoqueen stays a hunted girl.