‘They’re worried they’re putting themselves in danger’: How a BBC podcast tracks down a missing crypto queen

Jamie Bartlett didn’t think he’d track down one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted when he started recording his podcast in 2019.

At that time, the history of Dr. Ruja Ignatova, one of the missing founders of OneCoin, a cryptocurrency company that has attracted billions of investors.

In 2017, Ignatova disappeared just at the moment when interest in OneCoin was at its peak. Since then, thousands of investors have said they have never received anything in return for their money. An extensive investigation by German and US authorities led to allegations of fraud and money laundering against her and several members of her team, prompting the FBI to list her as one of the 10 most wanted service fugitives last July.

For Bartlett, the desire to turn her story into an award-winning The Lost Crypto Queen – and recently in the book of the same name – was more of a personal character.

“First of all, we didn’t just do this in the hope of solving a crime,” he says. I. “There were 2.3 million people in the UK who invested in crypto assets and I don’t think more than 1 percent of them really understood what they were and how they worked. And a lot of people I knew lost a lot of money.”

For those unfamiliar with OneCoin, a brief introduction: the company was launched in 2014 and promised to revolutionize the world of cryptocurrencies. At a time when bitcoin and other currencies were just gaining momentum, Ignatova said OneCoin will be a competitor with a difference: it will democratize access to digital payments and allow ordinary people to become investors and earn their millions when it was inevitable. Donors were invited to purchase “packs” of OneCoins at discounted prices, attend paid seminars and meetings, and be rewarded for attracting more supporters, as well as a multi-level marketing (MLM) program.

Speaking on stage at Wembley Arena in 2016, Ignatova touted OneCoin as a “bitcoin killer” in front of 3,000 fans and promised investors that it would make them rich.

The BBC estimates that British investors have invested around £100 million in OneCoin. The FBI believes that Ignatova and her inner circle, including OneCoin co-founder Sebastian Greenwood and her brother Konstantin, used the scheme to defraud more than $4 billion (£3.2 billion) of victims worldwide.

Ignatova has so far managed to avoid international criminal prosecution. In the last episode The Lost Crypto QueenAt a Europol meeting, it is revealed that five different police forces have been investigating the case and have shared information about their findings. But Bartlett’s team finds out about it thanks to a mole at the scene – and they believe Ignatova leaked at the same meeting.

Even after all this, OneCoin is still going strong. Bartlett shows me a poster of the OneEcosystem Tour, which took place in Europe at the end of 2022. “It’s kind of a rebrand, but it still works on OneCoin, with the same currency and price,” he explains.

Bartlett himself attended the London date, which took place in a restaurant. It was a “very small” gathering, he adds, but supporters were still there to preach the OneCoin system and organize new gatherings. This shows that the scam is alive and well. “We are not only talking about former investors, we are talking about people who are still investing,” he adds. “It’s not quite what it was in its prime, but it’s not quite dead either.”

This shows how difficult the situation remains for Bartlett and his fellow researchers. Lawyers are still selling the OneCoin dream, the company’s office in Sofia is still open, and Ignatova is still at large. “There are still people who are incredibly hopeful that Ruja will come back, that OneCoin will be sold on the open market, and that they will actually get all their millions of dollars,” says Bartlett. “But I believe that number is now on the decline.”

For these believers, even Greenwood’s arrest and confession would add fuel to the fire. “They will say that he was bullied by the authorities because those in power are afraid of the power of OneCoin,” he says with a smile. “That’s a really good little circular argument, isn’t it?”

News is now emerging that Ignatova has become the beneficial owner of a property in Kensington, west London that Bartlett has long tried to link to OneCoin. He describes it as “one of the most interesting events in history” and hoped she was alive and “out there” as evidence.

It can also make it easier for these fraudulent investors to get their money back. The Abbots House penthouse was bought for £13.5m and is now up for sale for £11m, which could at least be a way to win back OneCoin supporters in the UK.

Bartlett says other high-profile scams, like Bernie Madoff’s “biggest” pyramid scheme of around $65 billion, have certain “phases” they go through. He hopes that we will enter the “asset tracking and recovery phase” of the OneCoin saga.

“It used to work,” he explains. “Bernie Madoff says that about 75 cents of every dollar has been returned to investors. But this takes years and years. This is complicated by the fact that the money is tied around the world – from Beijing to Dubai to Bulgaria – and in various assets, which makes it “impossible to figure out where all this money went,” he adds.

The FBI has a hotline for all investors, including those in the UK, to call and begin the process of getting their money back if the authorities are able to freeze OneCoin’s assets. But returning money to creditors will be a long and complicated process.

For Bartlett, this is a disadvantage compared to the recent FTX crash, which garnered significant media attention and mobilized regulators. He wonders if it was because OneCoin investors had relatively little time – they invested an average of around €5,000 (£4,400) each – or the stigma attached to being trapped in the structure. similar to multi-level marketing. “I think some people get embarrassed when they look back, not only because they hired other people, but they think, ‘How could I have done this?’” he adds.

Another problem is that the cryptocurrency was not well studied in 2014. The FCA did not have much technical know-how in this area. Shortly after Ignatova’s performance at Wembley Stadium in 2016, a warning was issued: “Be careful when trading virtual currencies with OneCoin”, as well as a warning that the company was under investigation by the City of London Police. Then, in 2017, he abruptly withdrew his warning.

The move may have further encouraged OneCoin supporters, Bartlett says. “People assume that if something was wrong, the police or the FCA shouldn’t have been allowed to stop it,” he added. “But we know that’s not entirely true.”

Stricter regulations, earlier action and a better understanding of the world of cryptocurrencies may have helped, suggests Bartlett, but ultimately it’s hard to test what OneCoin has to offer people. “They really played on the fear of missing out,” he adds. “They assume that the numbers are always going up and you are always getting richer. This is what drives cryptocurrency speculation.”

But what makes this case especially interesting for Bartlett is that, in his opinion, it could have started with an “honest detention.” At a time when many crypto projects started, took money from investors, and then fell apart, Ignatova sincerely believed that OneCoin, in his opinion, could work. “But when she disappeared, she must have known that this was a completely unworkable Ponzi scheme and it was only a matter of time before she had to run,” he adds. The more money she took, the riskier it became to move on and the harder it was to turn back. “And she didn’t stop,” Bartlett says with a touch of sadness.

The investigation is still ongoing and The Lost Crypto Queen will return earlier this year with another episode that Bartlett hopes will reignite the conversation. Bartlett hopes the podcast can build on its “surprise” success and do justice to OneCoin investors, even after four years of what he calls “stressful” work.

“You spend sleepless nights worrying about the danger to yourself and the risks involved, but once you start, you can’t stop,” he explains. “I don’t know how many people we have helped, but I hope so. It’s frustrating that the same thing happens over and over again because more and more people are investing in it and don’t understand what they’re doing.”

In the meantime, he hopes that regulators will take a clear stance on cryptocurrencies and, in particular, how they are promoted. It may take time, he admits. Meanwhile, there are “many unanswered questions” about Ignatova that he hopes to answer.

Jamie Bartlett is the host of The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast on BBC Sounds and the author of the book of the same name.