According to journalists, the fraudster was killed on the orders of drug lord Hristoforos Amanatidis

​Media report the murder of the crypto Ponzi scheme OneCoin founder

20.02.2023 - 07:15

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2 min

What’s new? BIRD journalists, citing police documents in Bulgaria, reported that OneCoin crypto Ponzi scheme founder Ruja Ignatova was murdered in November 2018 on a yacht in the Ionian Sea. According to journalists, the fraudster was killed on the orders of drug lord Hristoforos Amanatidis. Hristo Krastev, a spokesperson for the Sofia Public Prosecutor's Office, said that his office does not consider the documents that fell into the hands of the publication as evidence, “because they do not contain data about the author, there is no signature, and they are not specifically written statements of a specific person.”

BIRD’s material

Ruja Ignatova co-founded OneCoin, one of the largest financial pyramid schemes in history, in 2014 jointly with Sebastian Greenwood. The FBI alleges that from 2014 to 2017, the woman defrauded investors and stole about $4 billion worth of their investments. She is one of the FBI’s top 10 most wanted criminals.

What else does the publication report? The documents examined by the publication were obtained by law enforcement authorities during the investigation into the murder of a police officer, and are whistleblower reports. The case itself is unrelated to OneCoin.

The fact that the drug lord ordered the murder of Ignatova was told by his relative. According to the documents, the murdered woman’s body was chopped up and thrown into the water. BIRD speculated that the crime was committed to cover up the connection between Amanatidis and Ignatova.

In June 2022, the FBI announced a $100 000 reward for any information about Ignatova. She was last seen leaving Bulgaria for Greece in October 2017. Since then, law enforcement authorities have had no new information about her whereabouts.

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