US Boosts Reward for Information on ‘Cryptoqueen’ to $5 Million

Chris Dolmetsch, Bloomberg News

, Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- US authorities have increased a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the alleged mastermind behind the massive OneCoin cryptocurrency fraud to $5 million.

The State Department on Wednesday said it was increasing the payout for any details about the whereabouts of OneCoin co-founder Ruja Ignatova. The reward was initially set at $100,000 when she was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ list of the 10 most-wanted fugitives in June 2022.

US authorities say Ignatova spearheaded a $4 billion international Ponzi scheme that offered commissions to members for recruiting others to buy packages of the worthless OneCoin cryptocurrency. At its height, OneCoin claimed to have more than 3 million members worldwide.

Ignatova was indicted in federal court in New York in October 2017. Two weeks later she traveled from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens to evade arrest. The reward is being offered under the State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which was established by Congress in 2013 and allows the department to offer bonuses of as much as $25 million for information on transnational organized crime.

Ignatova has remained a fugitive, even after several other participants in the scheme were convicted or pleaded guilty and received lengthy prison sentences.

Her brother, Konstantin Ignatov, who became the de facto leader of the organization after his sibling disappeared, pleaded guilty in 2019 and agreed to cooperate with the government. He was sentenced to time served in March for the 34 months he had already spent in jail. Ruja Ignatova had hired her brother away from a job as a forklift driver in Germany to work as her personal assistant. Her former boyfriend, Gilbert Armenta, pleaded guilty in 2018 and got five years in prison for laundering $300 million in proceeds from the scam.

Konstantin Ignatov was a key witness in the case against Mark Scott, a former Locke Lord LLP partner who was found guilty in November 2019 of helping launder $400 million from the fraud and sentenced to 10 years in prison in January. Scott is appealing his conviction based on evidence that Ignatov had given false testimony during his trial.

Karl Sebastian Greenwood, the co-founder and main promoter of OneCoin, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in September to 20 years in prison. Irina Dilkinska, the former head of legal and compliance, got four years in April after admitting to wire fraud and money-laundering conspiracy charges.

Christopher Hamilton, a UK national accused of laundering millions of dollars for OneCoin, in November won a bid to block his extradition to the US to face criminal charges after a London judge ruled the best place for him to stand trial is his home country.

The case is US v Scott, 17-cr-630, US District Court.