Regina Non Vocavit

Dateline: Woking, 3rd September 2024.You’re probably heard about The Missing Cryptoqueen. It was one of the best podcasts of all time, a BBC series that explored the story of Dr Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian-born German entrepreneur who founded a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme known as OneCoin, which The Times has described as “one of the biggest scams in history”.ShareOneScamIgnatova co-founded OneCoin in 2014, marketing it as a cryptocurrency despite it having no actual underlying “crypto” technology such as a blockchain. The scheme was promoted as a high-return investment opportunity, where profits were mainly supposed to come from new participants buying into the system rather than any legitimate business or mining activities (ie, a Ponzi scheme).She and her associates claimed that OneCoin would be the “Bitcoin killer” and conducted lavish promotional events worldwide to attract investors. They managed to raise billions of dollars globally. The scheme promised users big returns and encouraged them to sell the currency to others in order to make a profit. However, the currency had no real value and could not be used to buy anything. Moreover, the promised OneCoin exchange that would allow users to convert their digital “coins” into traditional currency never materialised.In 2017, authorities began catching on to the scam, leading to various international investigations. Dr Ignatova herself disappeared from the public eye at that time, leading to her being dubbed the “Missing Cryptoqueen”. She remains on the run and in 2019 she was charged in absentia by U.S. authorities for wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering….Regina Non Vocavit