The mystery surrounding Ruzha Ignatova is becoming more and more complicated. In the past week, it became clear that the crypto queen received 50 million dollars and part of her assets were unblocked. Where is the money now, is Ruzha Ignatova alive and do these transactions suggest anything about her whereabouts? Julian Stoyanov from Nova TV talks with the lawyer of Ignatova's victims - Jonathan Levi.
She is in the FBI's top 10 most wanted fugitives. Accused of one of the biggest frauds on the planet for 4 billion dollars, and has been missing since 2017. Its assets in Europe and the Arab Emirates are frozen. But an August transaction in Dubai worth $50 million opened Pandora's box.
"The theory that she is dead, as many people believe, is just another lie that is thrown to muddy the waters,", says Dr. Jonathan Levy, a lawyer for some of Ruzha Ignatova's victims.
An anonymous insider tipped off lawyer Levy that the so-called crypto-sheikh Salman al-Saud and a man named Maimoun Madani are arguing over who is Ruzha Ignatova's real representative in court in Dubai. Both are fighting for money from an account that was frozen in 2015 on suspicion of financing terrorism and money laundering.
"This Madani should not have won the case because the court found that his documents were forged, that he imitated Ignatova's signature, but still gave him the 50 million. We don't know what happened to them and why is the court giving them to him? And this leads us to believe that the whole deal, like the court proceedings, is a front for money laundering. And then we get a very confusing court decision that doesn't make any sense, even in Dubai, why a member of the royal family would lose a court case against this unknown person with documents that the court says are forged," Dr. Levy pointed out.< /p>
This again makes him wonder how such a thing could even happen in Dubai, unless both sides in this litigation are working together to launder billions of dollars.
According to Levi, on August 21, the Dubai court received testimony from Ruzha Ignatova. In them, the crypto queen says she has never met the so-called crypto sheikh. Nor did she take 230,000 bitcoins from him, which equates to nearly €20 billion.
"We have photographic material in which Sheikh Al-Qasmi's father is together with Ruzha Ignatova. And Sheikh Al-Hashemi's father is the chairman of a large bank in Dubai. I also had credible information that was passed on to the authorities that the Rouge was in the Gulf region. I won't tell you where. This is one theory backed by reality. The other day we heard claims from the German authorities that she is in South Africa, where these murders of so-called businessmen recently took place. She admits that she had connections with Russian organized crime, but maybe with Bulgarian as well. And whether or not Mr. Taki had anything to do with it or someone just conveniently dropped his name, we don't know. In Bulgaria, apart from Taki, there are many persons of various reputations who could be involved with OneCoin," said Dr. Levi.
At the beginning of the summer, the US State Department announced 5 million dollars for information leading to Ruza's arrest.
"The United States government, of course, raised the Rose Award to millions. And I know for sure because I contacted them recently that they are still looking for her. They are looking for any information on Ruza's whereabouts. There are professionals who deal with this. They are called bounty hunters. Due to the size of the prize money, I think eventually someone will come forward to claim it. I will be very surprised if at some point no one does. And I must say that if Ruža is dead, there will be witnesses," concludes the lawyer.