RT.com
23 Jan 2023, 04:13 GMT+10
After years of silence, alleged crypto fraudster Ruja Ignatova has put her luxury London apartment up for sale
Ruja Ignatova, who is accused by the US of scamming investors out of more than $4 billion, recently attached her name to a luxury property listed for sale in London. The legal filing is the first sign of life from the German national since she vanished without a trace more than five years ago.
Lawyers representing Ignatova made a claim to the four-bedroom flat last week, iNews reported on Thursday. The property was previously registered to an anonymous company registered in Guernsey, but was discovered to belong to Ignatova by BBC journalists in 2021.
The apartment was listed for sale last week at a price of Pound 11 million ($13.6 million), and was described by Knight Frank auction house as an "impressive four bedroom penthouse." However, as of Sunday, it has apparently been withdrawn from sale, according to multiple UK property websites.
Ignatova, known in the media as the 'Cryptoqueen', is the founder of OneCoin, a Ponzi scheme that sold worthless tokens which buyers would later discover they couldn't cash out for real money. Investors were promised extra tokens if they recruited more investors, and the pyramid scheme swelled until her company had "defrauded victims out of more than $4 billion," according to the FBI.
With investors getting impatient and a long-promised exchange service yet to materialize, she scheduled a speech in Lisbon in October 2017, during which she promised to tell them when they could finally sell their tokens. Ignatova never showed up, and the FBI states that her last known movement was to catch a flight from Bulgaria - where she was born - to the Greek capital of Athens that month.
A New York court issued a warrant for Ignatova's arrest in October 2017, and she was charged in 2018 with wire fraud, money laundering, securities fraud, and conspiracy. She is currently the only woman on the FBI's ten most wanted fugitives list, and the agency is offering a reward of $100,000 for information leading to her arrest.
Ignatova's claim to the apartment is "one of the most interesting developments in the story," Jamie Bartlett, who hosts a podcast on the Onecoin saga, told iNews. "It suggests she is still alive, and there are documents out there somewhere which contain vital clues as to her recent whereabouts."
(RT.com)
Get a daily dose of Greek Herald news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Greek Herald.
More InformationWASHINGTON D.C.: A report released this week detailed how, in January, layoffs in the US reached a more than two-year ...
LONDON, England: Energy giant Shell Oil has announced a record profit of nearly $40 billion in 2022, capping an eventful ...
SANTA CLARA, California: One week after Intel forecasted lower-than-expected sales caused by a loss of market share to rivals and ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: As part of a wider policy drive to increase competition in consumer markets, President Joe Biden has announced ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: The Biden administration has stopped issuing export licenses to US companies seeking to ship most items to China's ...
FRANKFURT, Germany: Data released this week showed that the German economy unexpectedly shrank in the fourth quarter of 2022, indicating ...
ABU DHABI, 6th February, 2023 (WAM) -- President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has directed the establishment ...
Ankara [Turkey], February 6 (ANI): Three earthquakes rocked Turkey on Monday as the country is still assessing the number of ...
A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake early Monday killed more than 1,700 people in Turkey and Syria and set off a search ...
The quake was felt in Greenland and triggered a tsunami warning in Italy, while causing shaking in Egypt, Israel and ...
Ankara [Turkey], February 6 (ANI): Second powerful earthquake hit Turkey on Monday with a magnitude of 7.5 after 912 people ...
A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake early Monday killed more than 1,500 people in Turkey and Syria and set off a search ...