Cryptoqueen과 불가리아 지하세계의 어두운 연관성이 누락되었습니다.

In September 2019, a BBC podcast began reporting the extraordinary story of Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian woman wanted by the FBI after scamming investors out of $4.5 billion (£3.54 billion) through fake cryptocurrencies and then disappearing.

Now we followed her trail to find out her fate. BBC Eye Investigations and Panorama investigated claims she had close links with a suspected Bulgarian organized crime boss and that she was brutally murdered. Did Ms. Ignatova enjoy the stolen billions? Or was she murdered by the very people who took her money to protect her?

Ruja Ignatova, a graduate of Oxford University, was born in Bulgaria and raised in Germany, where she had a successful career in finance before launching the cryptocurrency OneCoin in 2014.

 

Ms. Ignatova has convinced millions of people around the world to invest in OneCoin, which she promises will surpass the massive returns seen by early Bitcoin investors.

 

But in reality, Ms Ignatova, known to many as Dr Ruja, created a cleverly disguised investment scam without the digital records that underlie legitimate cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

 

When investigators in Germany and the United States arrested Ms. Ignatova in October 2017, she boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens in the early morning and was never seen again.

 

For the past year, the BBC World Service's Eye Investigations and Panorama have been trying to find out more about what happened to her and whether she is alive.

 

The key to this was identifying who her inner circle was.

 

Richard Reinhardt, who launched the investigation into OneCoin for the US Internal Revenue Service along with the FBI, told the BBC about key figures investigators have never mentioned publicly before.The Vanishing Cryptoqueen: Dead or Alive?

Ruja Ignatova, CEO of fake cryptocurrency OneCoin, is a woman wanted by the FBI. She stole billions of dollars and then disappeared. New evidence suggests what may have happened. Is she missing or was she murdered?

 

Watch now on BBC iPlayer (UK only) or BBC One on Monday 3 June at 20:00 (22:40 in Wales). Outside the UK, watch on YouTube.The search for missing crypto queen

Dr. Ruza Ignatova takes an unexpected turn when a story claiming she was murdered comes to light. But the sightings of Dr. Ruja keep coming in. Are they true?

 

The BBC understands the person responsible for keeping Ms Ignatova safe was Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis, known as Taki.

 

“We were told that a big-time drug dealer was in charge of her physical security,” Reinhardt said in her first interview since her retirement at the end of 2023.

 

“Taki appeared several times, but it wasn’t a one-time thing. That was a recurring theme.”

 

This matches the information we already have. U.S. government lawyers said in 2019 that Ms. Ignatova's security chief was a major organized crime figure in Bulgaria, but did not name him.

 

“We have evidence that a very important drug trafficker, if not the most prolific one in Bulgarian history, was closely linked to OneCoin and served as [Ruja Ignatova’s] personal security guard,” the assistant lawyer said.

 

This was the same “security chief” whom another U.S. government lawyer said in court a day earlier was “involved in the disappearance” of Ms. Ignatova.

 

“It’s like combining a white-collar criminal with a drug pusher or a mafia guy on steroids.”

 

This theory appears to be supported by leaked Europol documents seen by the BBC. The documents show that Bulgarian police established a relationship between Ignatova and Taki before she went missing in 2017.

 

In the document, police accuse Taki of using OneCoin's financial network to launder drug trafficking proceeds.

 

In his native Bulgaria, Taki has an almost mythical status as El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. He is widely suspected of being the head of a Bulgarian organized crime syndicate and drug smuggler. He and his associates were investigated there for armed robbery, drug smuggling and murder, but were never successfully prosecuted on any of the charges.

 

“When we say Taki, he is the head of the Bulgarian mafia. He is very powerful.” Ivan Hristanov, a former Bulgarian deputy minister who investigated in 2022 allegations that Taki ran a criminal network with the help of corrupt officials, said:

 

“Taki is a ghost. You will never see him. You only hear about it. He is talking to you through other people. “If you don’t listen, you will just disappear from the face of the earth.”

 

“The only person who could protect her (Ignatova) from all investigations, including those of foreign agencies, was Taki.”

 

The BBC has written to the Bulgarian government over allegations regarding corrupt officials. No response. The prosecutor's office in the capital Sofia said it "does not cover up crimes or people who may have committed them."

 

Taki is known to be currently living in Dubai. Igna Tova bought her luxury penthouse there and her bank account received tens of millions of dollars from OneCoin fraud.

 

It is not known how Taki and Ms Ignatova met or whether he was involved with OneCoin from the beginning, but multiple sources say the two had a close personal relationship and that he was her daughter's godfather.

 

A Bulgarian source close to Ms Ignatova told the BBC she may have been paying Taki up to €100,000 a month for her protection.

 

There also appear to be other financial relationships between Ms. Ignatova and Taki.

 

Europol documents mention a complex deal to sell land on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast linking one of Ignatova's companies to Taki's wife.

 

The secret police document was passed on to the BBC by Frank Schneider, a former spy and adviser to Ignatova, who has since disappeared.

 

He said his old boss was working with "thieves" and "gangsters."When we interviewed Mr. Schneider at his home in France, he was awaiting extradition to the United States under house arrest in connection with the OneCoin scam. But he wasn't ready to reveal his name.

 

“I won’t tell you who it is, because I have a family. This is very serious organized crime.”

 

But Ms. Ignatova's guardian may have ended up being her attacker.

 

In 2022, Bulgarian investigative journalist Dimitar Stoyanov and his colleagues at the investigative outlet Bird.bg were handed a police report found in the home of a murdered Bulgarian police officer.

 

In the document, a police informant details that he overheard Taki's brother-in-law drunkenly saying that Ignatova had been murdered on Taki's orders in late 2018, her body dismembered and her dumped on a yacht in the Ionian Sea. Mr. Stoyanov says this explanation is "very, very possible."

 

The authenticity of the police documents has been confirmed by Bulgarian officials and several of Taki's criminal associates believe her theory that Taki murdered her is true, Stoyanov said.

 

However, the BBC was unable to independently verify the claim.

 

The colleagues' rationale was that the wanted Ms Ignatova had become a liability for Taki, who wanted to be cleared of any links to the OneCoin scam.

 

Those associates include Krasimir Kamenov, known as Kuro, who is wanted by Interpol on murder charges.

 

Mr. Stoyanov said that he heard Kuroga Taki talking about his criminal activities in front of Mr. Ignatova, and he said that when Kuro asked Taki whether he should do so, Taki replied: "Do not worry. She is as good as dead. ”

 

Kuro also claimed to have spoken to the CIA about Taki, including the claim that Taki ordered Ms. Ignatova’s murder. Sources close to Kuro confirmed to the BBC that the meeting was scheduled to take place in late 2022.

 

In May 2023, Kuro was assassinated at his Cape Town home along with his wife and two others who worked for him. South African police are still searching for the killer, but former Bulgarian deputy minister Khristanov believes Kuro's murder is linked to Taki.

 

“Certain people knew too much about Taki and had to be eliminated.

 

“It was a kind of public execution that seemed like a statement. Be careful who you deal with,” he told us.

 

Journalist Dimitar Stoyanov said he and his colleagues had faced death threats since exposing Mr Ignatova's alleged murder, forcing him to temporarily leave Bulgaria for the fourth time in his life.

 

Mr. Stoyanov does not claim to know the motive for her alleged murder, but her property records show that since her disappearance, many of her Bulgarian properties are now being used by people associated with Taki, witnesses said.

 

Taki has never been arrested for allegedly killing Ms. Ignatova. Her body has not yet been found and investigators say there is not enough evidence to charge him.

 

But former IRS investigator Richard Reinhardt believes Ignatova is most likely dead. Although he has never seen any evidence linking Taki to her death, he said it is consistent with the way drug cartels operate.

 

"There is no honor among her thieves... knowing how violent the cartel is, if [Taki] thought she was a threat to him... he would probably take her out without getting caught."

 

The BBC wrote to Taki's lawyers about the allegations raised in the investigation, but they did not respond.

 

In 2022, Ms. Ignatova was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list and remains on the list to this day.

 

The BBC team behind The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast received numerous sightings and tips about Ms Ignatova's whereabouts following the alleged murder. This includes details of the failed Greek police operation to capture her in 2022.

 

Rumors of her death might just be another brilliant ploy to get everyone off the scent.

 

If so, it will become increasingly difficult for her to get away with each passing year.

 

“At some point, it might seem like Elvis Presley is still alive,” Mr. Khristanov said. “In fact, it’s very unlikely.”

 

According to Reinhardt, the FBI "doesn't put people on top 10 lists just for fun." But they will only remove someone if there is “hard evidence” that they are dead. And considering the circumstances, Ruja Ignatova will never be able to do that.

 

And that means, at least for now, the missing Cryptoqueen remains a hunted woman.

 

If you have any information about Dr Ruja Ignatova, you can email a BBC reporter at cryptoqueen@bbc.co.uk.