STEPPING off a plane in Greece, Dr Ruja Ignatova sent her bodyguard back to Bulgaria before leaving the airport.
That final goodbye, on October 25th, 2017, was the last sighting of the con artist, 44.
Over six years later, she is the only woman on the FBI’s Most Wanted List after disappearing with the proceeds of a £3.54billion cryptocurrency scam and is also on Interpol’s Red Notice List.
The glamorous German-Bulgarian businesswoman conned innocent victims around the world – including scamming £100m from 70,000 Brits – promising them high returns for investing in her cryptocurrency OneCoin,.
But she was no regular white collar criminal.
Ruja was locked into business with some incredibly dangerous figures in Bulgaria’s organised crime network and criminals across the globe.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Former American IRS investigator Richard Reinhardt said: “She had the perfect conditions for this scam, as cryptocurrency was taking off and no one really understood it.
“From her buying fake headlines from magazines to utilising her image, it was all very well executed.
“I think if anyone tried to do it today, they wouldn’t get away with it because people are aware of cryptocurrency and many don’t trust it.
“You have to be pretty dangerous or pretty unique to make the FBI’s most wanted list.
“And she’s pretty unique. Most of the big time criminals are male cartel bosses or drug kingpins. It’s rare to hear of women at this level.”
The investigator described working on the case as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” because of the scale of the deception and that a woman was heading up an extremely serious crime.
And Richard reckons that Ruja is dead and not just hiding out somewhere else.
“In my expert opinion, she is probably dead,” he said.
Taki is a ghost. You never see him, only hear him
Ivan Hristanov
“I just can’t see anybody being able to hide in this day and age with the technology there is.
“Plus the people she was dealing with globally to hide her money, the minute you become a liability to them, you are better off dead in their eyes.”
Brutal Bulgarian mobster links
Law enforcement and investigative journalists looking into her crimes found that the Oxford educated businesswoman had links to a ghostly figure known as Taki – real name Hirstoforos Amanatidas – believed to be the head of the Bulgarian Mafia.
He has been investigated for murder, armed robbery and drug offences but has never been formally charged.
In BBC1’s Panorama, The Missing Cryptoqueen: Dead or Alive?, which airs tonight, former Bulgarian Deputy Minister Ivan Hristanov said: “Taki is a ghost. You never see him, only hear him.
“He’s talking to you through other people. You don’t listen, you just disappear from earth.”
The pair is said to be financially linked and Taki is believed to be the godfather of her daughter.
It’s not known if he was involved in the OneCoin scam, using it to ‘clean’ dirty money, or if he was providing Ignatova with protection.
The minute you become a liability to them, you are better off dead in their eyes
Richard Reinhardt, IRS investigator
But since the con-woman dropped off the face of the earth, his associates are believed to be living in her Bulgarian mansion and other multi-million pound properties she owned in Germany and Dubai.
Investigator Richard said: “If I was a betting man, I’d say her profile and success will have drawn men like Taki and other serious organised crime guys to her.
“It becomes a marriage of necessity, they can’t let someone pull off a huge crime on their turf without having some role.
“There is a suggestion they knew each other well but we’ll never really know what their relationship was.”
Hired spy with ‘ears to the ground’
At the time of her disappearance Ruja was being investigated by at least ten different authorities including the FBI – and she was convinced her conversations were being recording.
The legendary scam was launched in September 2014, and Ruja successfully branded OneCoin as a “safe and easy” money-maker, despite cryptocurrencies being relatively new at the time.
Within a year, she had landed on the radar of the FBI despite her attempts to steer clear of America and their laws.
Shortly after, a meeting was held at The Hague for international agencies to coordinate their investigations.
Somehow, she had ears in that meeting and realised she was under investigation.
You lied to me on so many things on the personal level. What if you’re just telling me a story and I don’t know, like my head is spinning
Ruja Ignatova
It was thought she may have had help from former spy Frank Schneider, 53, who she employed as a troubleshooter.
Richard said: “Schneider is the only person she knew who would have had the contacts to get a spy into those meetings.
“He is the only one of her associates who could infiltrate a government-level meeting with his background in surveillance. It’s not something most organised crime bosses could manage.”
In an interview in the documentary – filmed in 2022 before he mysteriously disappeared himself – Frank denied having any role in Ruja’s crimes.
He claimed he had “taken on the wrong person” by working for her and alleged Ruja her links to organised crime were the reason for her disappearing act.
“There were crooks, gangsters,” he says in the Panorama documentary.
“No, I’m not going to tell you who because I have a family, I have kids and a wife and security reasons too. This is real serious organised crime.”
He also suggested that he believe Ruja was dead due to how effectively she disappeared, while denying knowledge of her whereabouts.
Betrayed by lover
Knowing she was being investigated, Ruja started recording her phone calls with everyone, including then-boyfriend Gilbert Armenta, who was informing the FBI on her and was also recording their calls.
Ruja had been tipped off that he had been arrested in the US for money laundering and, as a result, feared he might speak to authorities.
She was so paranoid about keeping him under control that she bought the town house above his to spy on him – according to the Panorama documentary.
He essentially gave us the keys to the castle
Richard Reinhardt
In one phone recording of a conversation with Gilbert, Ruja says: “You lied to me on so many things on the personal level. What if you’re just telling me a story and I don’t know, like my head is spinning.”
In another phone conversation, Gilbert let it slip that he was working for the FBI or IRS.
“Gilbert was invaluable to us by confirming that everything she was doing was a scam,” Richard told The Sun.
“He essentially gave us the keys to the castle and told us that he was laundering money for her in the US.
“Without his help, it would have been very difficult to prove that it was a fraud because cryptocurrency was very new, and we weren’t sure how to confirm it.”
The OneCoin Scam
In 2014 Ruja created OneCoin claiming that it was a new form of cryptocurrency that would be more successful than bitcoin.
She sourced clients from in person event, online seminars and through other people marketing it through emails.
It promised investors huge profits for their investment but these never materialised.
The business had two parts: Educational Package and tokens.
The educational packages cost between €100 to €118,000. While the tokens package could be converted into euros.
Ruja claimed that OneCoins would be able to be exchanged for euros that would be placed in a virtual wallet which investors would be able to access.
She placed limits on how much could be traded in the online marketplace based on the level of investment and type of package.
Investors were able to see how much money they were allegedly making on the OneCoin website.
However, the money was never accessible and investors lost anything they had paid in.
Ruja scammed £3.54bn from investors across the globe.
After Gilbert’s confession, Ruja never contacted him again, preventing him from providing updated information to the authorities.
By then, there was a solid case against her. But when the the con artist visited France, in 2017, the IRS missed a valuable chance to swoop.
“It haunts me that we were so close to her in France and didn’t go for it,” Richard said.
“We thought she’d be arrested by French authorities and eventually extradited to us.
“At the time we still had Gilbert in place so thought we’d get a second chance at her if anything went wrong.
“A few years later, Frank managed to disappear while in France waiting for his trial, so she’d have probably pulled the same trick (had she been arrested).”
‘Dismembered and thrown in sea’
Shortly after, Ruja took a plane to Greece and after leaving Athens, she vanished.
Despite huge rewards being offered for information on her, she has not been found.
A report leaked from Bulgarian authorities claimed that Ruja was murdered in November 2018 on the orders of Taki.
It was alleged that his associate Hristo Hristov had killed her on a yacht in the Ionian Sea, and then her body was dismembered and thrown overboard.
Another associate Kuro, who claimed that Taki had Ruja, was later murdered in South Africa.
It’s likely that no one will ever know what has actually happened
Richard Reinhardt
But the FBI believe that Ruja is still alive somewhere, sequestered away under a new identity.
Her death came into question when her multi-million London pad was put on the market for £13.5m in 2021.
She was revealed as the owner thanks to a recent change in UK law meaning she couldn’t hide behind the company that she used to purchase it.
Private Eye later estimated the flat contained works of art worth £500,000, bought from London’s Halcyon gallery.
It was quietly taken off the market once the estate agents were made aware of the owner.
Richard told The Sun: “She had to trust a lot of bad people across the globe.
“Taki may be the main figure right now, but it’s possible someone from Dubai, Germany, or even the UK could be the reason for her disappearance.
“And if they’re in organised crime, they’re probably smart enough to dispose of her in a way no one would find.
“That’s the whole fascination of this story, it’s likely that no one will ever know what has actually happened.”
BBC Eye Investigations and Panorama – The Missing Cryptoqueen: Dead or Alive? Available on BBC One, 8pm today (3rd June), with an extended version on BBC World Service YouTube channel.
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