WHEN Jennifer McAdam’s father died, he left her some money.
It wasn’t a life-changing fortune — £15,000 — but it was enough to make her think she should invest it somewhere so it could grow.
Little did she know that this decision would lead to her becoming locked in a David vs Goliath fight to get justice for herself and other victims who have lost more than £25billion in the world’s biggest scam.
She and three million small investors put their savings into OneCoin — a new crypto currency which turned out to be a massive con.
Tears flow down her cheeks as she tells The Sun: “The only thing that’s real are the death threats.”
Since 2016, when Jen first realised OneCoin was not a crypto currency but in fact a huge Ponzi pyramid-selling scheme, she has been targeted by criminal gangs and mafia cartels threatening to silence her with sick sex attacks and murder.
The FBI advised Jen and her partner Gordon to move from the family home in the west of Scotland for their safety but she bravely refused.
I meet Jen, 53, in Glasgow. She says: “One day you’re living your normal life and the next it is as though you walked through a sliding door and entered a nightmare that’s relentless and has no mercy.
“What happened to me was alien to my world, so fantastic and terrifying.
“I was caught up in one of history’s deadliest conspiracies, which connects to the Eastern European mafia, money launderers, and the worst type of fraudster criminals you would witness in a brutal Hollywood movie.
‘Doing the devil’s work’
“I’m too wary to tell anyone where I live but I’ll never be too fearful to tell my story.”
Because of her efforts, Jen has been dubbed “Britain’s Erin Brockovich”, after the US housewife who took on polluting energy firms 30 years ago and had her story turned into an Oscar-winning film starring Julia Roberts.
Now Jen’s incredible story could be next for the silver screen.
She has written about her battle in a new book, Devil’s Coin, and there are plans to turn it into a Hollywood movie.
This story begins in 2015 when Jen’s beloved dad Bill, a retired coal miner, died aged 92. He left Jen and her sister Adele £15,000 each in his will.
Jen says: “Dad was an amazing man, a hard-working miner who didn’t smoke or drink.
“He didn’t have a lot of money so I wanted to put it into a good, safe investment that would grow for my family’s future.”
The following year, an email arrived from a friend: “Hey, have you seen this? That money that your father left you? This could be a place to invest it.”
Jen was directed to a video of a seminar at Wembley Arena led by a dark-haired woman with bright-red lipstick, who claimed to be one of the richest women in Europe.
Dr Ruja Ignatova, 43, had set up OneCoin, a crypto currency to rival BitCoin which was sweeping the world at the time, and claimed to be a multi-billionaire.
Nicknamed the Crypto Queen, she told how she had mansions in Bulgaria, Germany and the Middle East, drove an armoured Lexus, owned a super-yacht and had racing investments in Dubai.
In the UK, Ignatova said she had offices overlooking Hyde Park as well as a penthouse in Kensington, filled with expensive paintings including an original Andy Warhol, and pop legend Tom Jones performed at her lavish 36th birthday party.
As well as being rich and beautiful, Ignatova was brainy, too.
She said she was an international financier with a degree from Oxford, a doctorate in law and that she had an IQ of 200.
She also “featured in Forbes”, the magazine for the ultra-wealthy, when it was actually a paid-for advert, and said she had been a speaker at a summit of the world’s leading economists.
On stage, at Wembley, Ignatova was surrounded by smooth-talking aides including her former lover, Sebastian Greenwood, originally from Dulwich, South London.
Jen says: “I was beguiled by Ruja. She was mesmerising. Her performance on stage was magnetic.
“She convinced everybody OneCoin would be bigger than BitCoin. I couldn’t wait to give her my money.”
Jen was so convinced OneCoin would make her money grow she put more in and persuaded other family members and friends to invest.
They handed over £250,000 in total.
But alarm bells began to ring when, although her investment had apparently grown in value to £100,000, the promised option of converting her OneCoins into cash never materialised.
Crypto experts warned Jen that OneCoin was a con and the truth finally dawned on her that this was an old-fashioned pyramid selling operation on a modern platform.
Ignatova had seen what was happening to BitCoin and used it to fraudulently scam millions of people.
The Forbes magazine cover was fake, it was actually a paid-for advert, as was speaking to economists.
Jen says: “My legs went to jelly. I was on my bedroom floor before I knew it. Flashing before me was a £250,000 loss. Bang! Mine, family, friends, friends of theirs.
“What is so cruel and so heinous is that Ruja Ignatova didn’t prey on rich people, she targeted the poor. She was doing the devil’s work.
“In the Midlands her sales teams even went after the money of people in the deaf community.
“Ruja was ice-cold. Pure evil through and through. She had one mission and that was to take as much money as possible, have an exit strategy and go. I think it just grew too big too quickly for her.”
Billions rolled in as the CryptoQueen continued to travel the globe selling OneCoin to some of the world’s poorest people.
The Financial Conduct Authority watchdog posted a warning on its website about investing in OneCoin but it was suddenly taken down.
‘Lives are ended’
Detectives with City of London Police also investigated after being tipped off by Jen, but they decided not to prosecute as “there was insufficient evidence”.
Jen says: “It took my breath away. I wanted to cry.”
So, Jen took to social media, warning potential investors not to part with their money.
Her phone pinged with messages 24 hours a day from desperate victims wanting her help — and from OneCoin crooks wanting her dead.
She says: “My nemesis Dr Ruja Ignatova seemed to target me as OneCoin’s public enemy number one.
“The last seven years exposing the OneCoin scam and supporting victims has been has been terrifying at times.
“I’ve faced death threats and threats of sexual violence against me and have been looking over my shoulder for years. I have protection in my home.”
When she thought about giving up her campaign for her own safety and sanity, Jen’s close family, who were also threatened, told her to keep fighting for justice.
She says: “I’ve lost count of how many calls I’ve taken through the middle of the night from people who are absolutely devastated.
They don’t know how to tell their families, their wives, they have got themselves into a lifetime of debt to buy into OneCoin.
“In places like Africa and Pakistan, if that debt is not repaid people’s lives are ended.
“Someone from India contacted my WhatsApp group and said ‘We are a group of 32 men from Kerala we have decided to commit suicide so the world will learn how we have been scammed and lost everything’.
“I phoned and phoned that person for weeks after and got no reply. I fear that they carried out their threat.”
But police in Germany and Pakistan did take action and began arresting Ignatova’s team.
The FBI put Ignatova on their world’s Top Ten Most Wanted list and in April 2022 she was added to Interpol’s Red Notice List.
Europol warned: “Ignatova and her companions could potentially be armed. Anyone willing to collaborate with the authorities should be careful.”
Jen says: “Thank God for the FBI. Thank God for Germany because up until that point we had no support, no hope.”
Brit Simon Greenwood was arrested in Thailand on FBI orders and extradited to the US, where he denies conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and securities fraud. If found guilty, he faces up to 90 years in jail.
Meanwhile Ignatova’s brother Konstantine pleaded guilty to all charges and accepted a plea deal, which involved becoming a government witness in consideration for a lesser sentence.
But Ignatova has vanished after learning the Americans were on her trail.
She was last seen getting on a Ryanair flight to Greece.
Jen says: “People say she’s been cut up into pieces and thrown into the sea from her yacht. But I don’t believe she is dead.
“I’m convinced this menace to the world still remains at large and in hiding.
“I can’t wait for the day when I will see her standing there in a prisoner’s orange jumpsuit while the victims get a say in a court of law about what she did to their lives and for a judge to hear it.
“Then I hope she goes away for the rest of her life.”
- Devil’s Coin, by Jennifer McAdam with Douglas Thompson, is published by AdLib on August 8 in paperback (RRP £9.99)
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