Luza Ignatova, the main culprit in the 5 trillion won ‘Onecoin’ Ponzi scam
Stolen 5 trillion won with ghost virtual currency bait that hasn’t been issued
International scammer Luza Ignatova, nicknamed ‘the virtual currency queen’, has been added to the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.
The FBI announced on the 30th (local time) that it had added Luza Ignatova, the main culprit of the 5 trillion won ‘onecoin’ Ponzi scam (multi-level financial fraud), to its top 10 most wanted list.
Ignatova is accused of stealing 4 billion dollars (5.26 trillion won) of investment using the ghost cryptocurrency OneCoin, which has never actually been issued.
Michael Driscoll, director of the FBI’s New York bureau, said, “Ignatova claimed to have created a blockchain-based Onecoin, but this coin did not exist.”
“Ignatova is a criminal who fled after committing a worldwide fraud,” said Damien Williams, Attorney General for the Southern District of New York.
Europol, the European Union’s police organization, also designated Ignatova as a serious wanted last month and offered a 5,000 euro (about 6.8 million won) bounty.
According to US prosecutors and the FBI, Ignatova, a German citizen, founded OneCoin, a ghost cryptocurrency, in Bulgaria in 2014. For the next three years, he attracted 3 million investors from around the world, including the United States, to join the ‘One Coin Financial Revolution’, and stole the investment through pyramid schemes.
He disappeared on a plane to Greece in 2017 after realizing that US investigative authorities were investigating him.
Jang Ji-min, Guest Reporter at Hankyung.com newsinfo@hankyung.com
