She betrayed the trust of over 3 million people, leaving them with pain, agony, regret, and distrust. Read the entire story for details.
(Dr. Ruja Ignatova: The founder of OneCoin)
In the early days of the cryptocurrency industry, several projects emerged with promises to replace Bitcoin as the new internet money. One of them was dubbed the “Bitcoin Killer” in 2017 by its founder. But before I reveal the name, I need you to guess which cryptocurrency I am talking about. Your time starts now… tik tak.. tik tac.
Yes, you guessed it right. I am talking about the infamous OneCoin cryptocurrency project founded by Dr. Ruja Ignatova.
You may be wondering who’s Dr. Ruja Ignatova, and how did she convince expert investors and global business leaders to believe in her vision.
Well, Dr. Ruja Ignatova was born in Bulgaria in 1980. When she was 10 years old, she relocated to Germany with her family. Later, she earned a PhD in law from Oxford University and worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company.
She was a charismatic and brilliant leader who had a flair for languages, speaking fluent English, German, Bulgarian, and Russian. She was also known for her beautiful smile and glamorous lifestyle.

Dr. Ruja wore expensive designer clothes, jewelry, and makeup, and spoke with confidence and eloquence to the admiration of everyone who ever attended her presentations.

To launch a Ponzi scheme, she revealed her vision to change the world through a cryptocurrency project called OneCoin, and she self-proclaimed to be the CryptoQueen.
Unfortunately, her fame and glamour didn’t last long. She disappeared in 2017, leaving behind a trail of deception, loss, agony, and mystery for investors who had trusted her with their funds.
Her story reminds me of the biblical saying that the wicked run when no one pursues them.
The question that keeps running through my mind is why did Dr. Ruja disappear? Did she get a security tip-off we didn’t know about? Or did she plan her exit strategy while designing the OneCoin scam project?
This and many more we shall find out in this story. But before we begin, it’s on record that Dr. Ruja ran one of the biggest scams in the history of cryptocurrency, and she is on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list.

How it All Began: Building the Illusion

(Dr. Ruja at a business meeting)
Dr. Ruja and Karl Sebastian Greenwood founded the OneCoin company. Interestingly, Sebastian was a Multi-Level Market (MLM) expert, and Dr. Ruja had served as a consultant to McKinsey & Company. She also had a great personality and a beautiful smile.

To attract millions of users, they adopted the MLM strategy and recruited top leaders from the MLM industry to help spread the word and recruit more investors.

In the early stages of the company, OneCoin had tremendous success. Within a few years, they attracted over three million people who bought educational packages that supposedly gave them access to OneCoin tokens.
However, OneCoin’s business model was fraudulent because investors were unable to verify the existence or value of OneCoin tokens. These tokens were not registered on any blockchain or public ledger, meaning that investors couldn’t trade or convert them to other cryptocurrencies. In rare cases, only a few trades were initiated by Dr. Ruja.
To give a glimmer of investors hope, Dr. Ruja and her team would manipulate figures at the backend to make it seem like the numbers were going up on their screens. But in reality, it was impossible to trade or withdraw your assets. It was similar to John Cena saying “You can’t see me.”
Despite this warning sign, investors were blinded by greed and the promise of becoming billionaires. Unfortunately, they ended up buying worthless tokens that were not tradable on any cryptocurrency exchange.
This Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Dr. Ruja received over 14 billion dollars at the detriment of investors who entrusted her with their funds. But what happened to Dr Ruja?

Her Disappearance

(Dr. Ruja’s transformation)
In October 2017, the top members of Onecoin organized an event in Lisbon, Portugal, and invited Dr. Ruja as one of the key speakers.
However, she did not show up, which was unusual because she usually kept appointments. The organizers tried to contact her, but they received no response. Her itinerary showed that she boarded a flight from Bulgaria to Greece a few days before the event, and that was the last recorded information about her.

But Where is Dr. Ruja?

What happened to Dr. Ruja remains a mystery to the Crypto community. Since her disappearance in 2017, no one has been able to locate her.
Some reports speculate that she fled to Russia, Dubai, or the Caribbean, underwent surgery to change her appearance, and began living a private life. Others believe that she was kidnapped, blackmailed, or threatened by powerful enemies. Unfortunately, no one knows for sure what happened to Dr. Ruja after she took investors’ funds and disappeared.

More Troubles

(Dr. Ruja on FBI list: Screenshot by author)
Following her absence at the OneCoins event, investors became skeptical about the company. A few months later, authorities cracked down on OneCoin and arrested top associates who promoted the company to defraud over three million people.
For example, in 2017, Bulgarian authorities raided OneCoin’s headquarters in Sofia and seized servers and documents containing foreign accounts used for money laundering. In that same year, the Italian government fined OneCoin over 2.5 million euros for operating an illegal pyramid scheme and banned its activities in the country.
Moreover, in 2018, US authorities indicted Dr. Ruja and several of her associates on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. They also issued a warning to the public, stating that OneCoin was a fraudulent cryptocurrency that had no value or substance.
Additionally, authorities in the UK, Germany, China, and India banned Onecoin and labeled it a scam project. Despite these developments, OneCoin continued to hypnotize its followers by telling them that the authorities were fighting against them for inventing a project for the people’s financial freedom.
As these ugly incidents began unfolding, a few individuals began to agitate and made negative remarks about Onecoin and Dr. Ruja. However, her team still had more tricks up their sleeves. They needed to shield their victims from the truth.
To control the psyche of investors from the outside world, they created the OneLife community, where they brainwash and hypnotize innocent investors against believing any negative news they read from the media. This trick worked perfectly, and they were able to control the psyche of their members.
In the end, Dr. Ruja left behind a legacy of deception and manipulation that affected the lives of millions of people globally.
Unfortunately, most of her victims were people from developing countries or those struggling to attain financial freedom. They became poorer because of the greed of one woman who swindled millions of people globally and disappeared with their invested funds.

The OneLife Community

(Dr. Ruja’s hosted event)
After the disappearance of Dr. Ruja, one might have assumed the scam would come to an end, and investors would recover their funds. However, that was not the case.
Despite overwhelming evidence of fraud against Onecoin cryptocurrency and its founder, some investors refused to give up on their dream. They believed that OneCoin was still a legitimate and valuable cryptocurrency project that would change their lives.
Others believed that Dr. Ruja would return and fulfill her promise, so they joined a loyal and devoted community called OneLife to support and defend OneCoin.
Unfortunately, these OneLife members were hypnotized and would counter every argument against OneCoin by using some famous quotes by Dr. Ruja such as “We are writing history” and “We are not here to sell coins, we are here to create a new philosophy”.
In my opinion, the OneLife community was a cult-like phenomenon that demonstrated the power of persuasion and psychology in creating and maintaining a false reality.
Even today, in some parts of Africa, a few investors still believe their Onecoin tokens will be worth thousands of dollars in the future. I can only say may God have mercy on their souls.
(A victim of the OneCoin Ponzi Scheme from Uganda)
Remember that Dr. Ruja hired top industry experts and influencers to promote Onecoin, but ordinary everyday people were the victims. Therefore, just because your favorite influencer promoted a cryptocurrency project does not mean it is legitimate.
So, do your research before investing your hard-earned money into any cryptocurrency projects. This is because if you fall victim to fraud, there is no one to hold responsible for your actions. Dr. Ruja wasn’t alone, she also recruited her brother to promote OneCoin.

The Role of Konstantin Ignatov (Dr. Ruja’s brother)

(Dr. Ruja and her brother)
One of the key figures in the OneCoin scam was Dr. Ruja’s brother, Konstantin Ignatov. Dr. Ruja hired him as her bodyguard and made him a top-ranking member of the OneCoin company. Despite his criminal record for fraud, Konstantin joined the top leaders to promote OneCoin, and he was a strong ally of Dr. Ruja Ignatov.
A while after the sudden disappearance of Dr. Ruja, Konstantin took over as the acting CEO, traveling the world, hosting events and seminars, and convincing people to invest in OneCoin. However, his reign came to an end in March 2019 when the FBI arrested him at Los Angeles International Airport. He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and faced up to 20 years in prison.
(Dr. Ruja and business partners)
Konstantin pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the authorities for a reduced sentence. He also revealed some secrets behind OneCoin, but couldn’t reveal the whereabouts of Dr. Ruja because she kept the secret to herself.
Dr. Ruja followed Law 3 of the 48 Laws of Power, which talked about concealing your intentions to maintain an advantage over others. Do you think she was a smart woman or a manipulator?

Final Thoughts

(Konstantin in a charity home in Uganda while scamming their parents)
The story of OneCoin and Dr. Ruja filled our hearts with curiosity, anger, sadness, and fear. It exposes the dark and dangerous side of the cryptocurrency industry and the greedy nature of humans. This story showed that if we can control our greed and do our research, we can save ourselves and others from falling victim to swindlers and Ponzi schemes.
So, if you have been scammed or rug-pulled by investing in failed cryptocurrency projects, kindly share your thoughts in the comment section. Be careful of scammers promising to help you recover stolen funds or crypto assets in the comments section. Act wisely and report anyone suspicious.
I hope you enjoyed this story. If you have any experiences to share, please leave them in the comments, and don’t forget to follow and subscribe to receive email notifications when I publish new stories. Thank you for reading.
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Written by CryptoBigStories
Story Sources:
Be Amazed
DW Documentary
ColdFusion
BBC Scotland.