A lawyer, a husband, and his wife faced a court in Germany in connection with the $4 billion OneCoin cryptocurrency scam. The project's creator, Ruja Ignatova, known to the cryptocurrency community as 'Cryptoqueen', is still on the run.
As Bloomberg reported, a Munich-based lawyer associated with Ignatova allegedly transferred nearly $20 million through the Cayman islands to purchase two apartments in London. The transaction was made in Ignatova's name.
The two other 'Cryptoqueen' associates on trial are a husband and wife responsible for managing OneCoin customer payments worth more than $315 million.
Ignatova's whereabouts are still unknown. Law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe are currently searching for her. The three people who appeared before a German court may be the first in Europe to be convicted in this case.
German prosecutors do not doubt that OneCoin was a fraud. 'Cryptoqueen' had been telling victims since 2014 that OneCoin was a cryptocurrency and that its value depended on the market mechanisms they could observe. Up to 50,000 new tokens were supposed to appear on the market every minute. However, as prosecutors have established, the entire process was simulated, starting with the mining of new coins and increasing the value of those already available in the ecosystem.
At the height of its popularity, OneCoin allegedly had more than 3,000 users worldwide, generating €3.4 billion in revenue over two years.
Wanted since 2017
Ignatova has been wanted by police and authorities since October 2017, when she disappeared from public life. In the meantime, the business was taken over by her brother, Konstantin Ignatov, who was arrested in the United States two years later.
In addition to the fraudster's brother, Karl Sebastian Greenword, one of OneCoin's co-founders, and the corporate lawyer, Mark Scott were convicted in the US.
In May 2022, Europol decided to include the Founder and mastermind behind the OneCoin crypto fraud on its list of most wanted fugitives. Ignatova thus found herself among violent criminals, including murderers and drug traffickers.
"[She] is suspected of having, as the driving force and intellectual inventor of the alleged cryptocurrency 'OneCoin', induced investors all over the world to invest in this actually worthless 'currency'," Europol stated in May.
Anyone with information on Ignatova can report to Europol, which offers a monetary reward of up to €5,000. However, this amount seems too small, given the scale of the crimes committed.
