Last news in Fakti

South African magazine: Crypto queen Ruzha Ignatova is hiding in Cape Town

There are several versions

Nov 23, 2024 10:06 467

FAKTI.BG publicizes journalistic investigations from various media outlets because it supports freedom of speech.

Crypto queen Ruzha Ignatova, founder of the financial pyramid OneCoin, who is on the FBI list as one of the ten most wanted fugitives of 2022 Mr. here, she is alive and located in Cape Town, writes the South African magazine "Cape {town} Etc".

The Bulgarian woman has been missing since 2017, when an arrest warrant was issued against her in the US. US law enforcement officials are offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Ignatova's arrest and conviction. She was last seen boarding a plane from Bulgaria to Greece, after which she disappeared.

There are several versions of Ignatova's fate, according to one of them, the crypto queen was killed and her body dismembered by a mafia boss and dumped in the Ionian Sea in 2018.

According to another South African publication Daily Maverick, however, the German police have confirmed that they are investigating information that Ruzha Ignatova may be alive and hiding in South Africa. Information about Ignatova's location was initially released by the German television station WDR in the documentary Die Kryptoqueen - Ruja Ignatova und ihr Milliarden-Betrug.

German publication Der Spiegel also published an article on November 8, stating that German authorities suspect that previous reports of the Bulgarian woman's death are false and have therefore focused their attention on leads in South Africa.

In Bulgaria, Ruzha Ignatova was brought in absentia as a defendant for the fact that in the period from 2014 until 2017 formed and led an organized criminal group on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria, created with the aim of committing investment frauds of the "Ponzi" type scheme, as well as for a profit.

The crypto queen has a second charge - of money laundering - that in the period from 2014 until 2017 under the conditions of a continuing crime, as an instigator and aider in some cases, and in others as a perpetrator, carried out numerous transactions for property disposal, thereby concealing the origin and actual rights to property, which she knew was acquired by criminal activity - "Ponzi" investment scams.