Charges against husband of ‘cryptoqueen’ cleared

Ruja Ignatova’s plans were big, her marketing strategy was immodest. The self-proclaimed “crypto queen” promised investors that its digital currency Onecoin was a European “bitcoin killer” that would replace the world’s most successful cryptocurrency at the top.

Today we know: Ignatova’s promises were just empty words and Onecoin was a Ponzi scheme. That finally collapsed, after which the Bulgarian-born German disappeared in autumn 2017. Since then she has been considered missing. But now an important ally of the crypto queen may have to answer in court.

As the Handelsblatt first reported, Ignatova’s former husband has been charged with money laundering. The two met while studying law in Konstanz. Ignatova’s husband later worked for years as a lawyer at a top international law firm in Frankfurt.

The public prosecutor’s office in Darmstadt is now accusing him of money laundering in three cases. Among other things, the lawyer is said to have transferred 7.69 million euros from a Hong Kong-based company to his private account. The payment is said to have been initiated by his wife and is believed to have come from fraud.

The accused declined to comment on the allegations. It is not yet certain whether there will be a trial. The district court in Darmstadt is now examining the charges. The opening of the main hearing should be decided in the next three to six months.

Between 2014 and 2017, investors worldwide had invested more than four billion euros in Onecoin. In Germany alone, around 60,000 users fell for the scam, because Onecoin was never a digital currency, the underlying blockchain was probably fictitious. The coins and tokens could not be bought directly either, but only in combination with a training package.

The fraud worked thanks to a sophisticated distribution system through so-called multilevel marketing. Customers became sales partners themselves and mainly sold the training packages for securities trading, the Onecoin tokens were then added. According to US investigators, the Onecoin scam is said to have brought in around four billion US dollars – money that was largely shifted to offshore accounts and thus withdrawn from the access of cheated investors and investigators.

Authorities had doubts about the seriousness of Onecoin early on. In April 2017, for example, the German financial regulator Bafin issued an injunction against two Onecoin companies because the sale of Onecoin was “fraudulent trading with own funds”. The collapse of the pyramid scheme only came in 2019, when Ignatova and others in charge went into hiding.

Ignatova’s brother has already admitted his involvement in the fraud and money laundering and is in custody in the United States. In Germany, criminal proceedings against a married couple from Greven and a Munich lawyer have been ongoing since September 2021. The three are said to have helped with the fraud and moved funds in Germany.

The crypto queen herself is now one of the most wanted criminals in the world. Interpol, Europol and BKA are looking for her. The FBI has offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to her arrest. German investigators accuse her of joint fraud in a particularly serious case and money laundering.

Her whereabouts remain a mystery – many believe that Ignatova is no longer alive; she could have been killed by accomplices. Others think she’s just hiding. The podcaster and investigative reporter Jamie Bartlett recently even claims to have discovered a new lead on the crypto queen.