The FBI said on Friday it has added OneCoin Co-Founder Ruja Ignatova to its ten most wanted fugitives list as her whereabouts since 2017 remain unknown.
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The intelligence service said in a press release that Ignatova's fraud scheme "affected millions of investors worldwide," which is why the agency is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to her arrest.
Special Agent Ronald Shimko, who's leading the case in FBI's New York Field Office said:
"OneCoin claimed to have a private blockchain. This is in contrast to other virtual currencies, which have a decentralized and public blockchain. In this case, investors were just asked to trust OneCoin."
The FBI believes that OneCoin could have defrauded victims all over the world "out of billions."
Ignatova's whereabouts have been unknown since October 2017 as she hasn't appeared in public since this date, neither in connection with OneCoin nor otherwise. The "Cryptoqueen" first introduced OneCoin back in 2014.
The project is considered a Ponzi scheme over its organizational structure. According to US prosecutors' estimates, the scheme brought in approximately $4 billion worldwide.
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