One Coin OneCoin was a money heist that took
billions from investors between 2014 and 2018. The brains behind this scheme was Ruja Ignatova.
Although the U.S. government previously estimated OneCoin’s take at $4 billion dollars, there are
sources that claim the worldwide take was as much as $15.8 billion dollars as of early 2018!
What made OneCoin so attractive? It was its viral, commission-driven structure that helped it be sold
to many vulnerable, tech-naive communities, such as working-class England and South Asia.
Ruja Ignatova Ruja Ignatova is a well educated woman with a
PhD in European private law. And it’s a good thing she has a lot of lawyer friends, because in 2012,
she was convicted of fraud in Germany! She was actually sentenced to 14 years in prison,
but her sentence was later suspended. So what did she decide to do? Create one of
the biggest scams ever, because…...why not?! Ruja, along with her lawyer Sebastian Greenwood,
created a Ponzi scheme that had the hottest thing going on for investors at the time.
Blockchain. They created Onecoin, a coin that they promised to rival Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s rise in value
from a few cents to hundreds of dollars per coin by mid-2016 had retail investors hungry for more
ways to get rich quick. Crypto 101
In case you don’t know how crypto works, the only thing you have to understand is this.
Something is only valuable because other people think it's valuable. Whether it's money, diamonds,
or gold. It only works when other people put value on it and trust the value can hold.
For a long time, people have tried to create digital money. But everything always failed
because no one could trust them. They would always need someone in charge. With someone in charge,
they could manipulate the supply, and there goes the concept. But Bitcoin solved that problem. It
depends on a database called a blockchain. Basically it's a giant digital book of every
transaction that involves any Bitcoin. And everyone has a copy of it. Every time a
Bitcoin is sent, a record of that transaction goes into everyone's book. Nobody could change it. So
this means that Bitcoins couldn't be manipulated and couldn’t be hacked. Bitcoin gave way for the
potential to change how banking works. Bitcoin with its blockchain became a game changer!
The Pitch What Ruja knew was that the average person
wanted to get rich fast. And with Bitcoin’s fast rise, she knew that she had something to see to
the masses. The scam was predicated on enthusiasm and a quick sell. All of the talks geared around
how the people were so lucky to be getting in at that stage. Ruja would pitch that OneCoin would
be like Bitcoin. It's going to go bigger. Ruja would spin her background of a degree
from Oxford, a PhD from Konstanz, a stint with the respected management consultancy,
McKinsey. Who knows if all that was true. It probably wasn’t. Her main thing was to take
advantage of the fact that the average person she was pitching to just didn’t understand what
they were investing. What’s a blockchain? Who knows! Does it even need to exist?! No!
Even if it did, what did it do for OneCoin?! Who cares! The coin was going to the moon!
Seriously, the thing is this. If you don’t understand how a specific investment makes money,
you SHOULDN’T invest in it. MLM Recruits
Ruja would also specifically recruit experienced multi-level marketers. We’ll go through a super
quick rundown on how Multi-level marketing works. Basically, let’s say you’re selling makeup.
Whatever makeup you sell, of course you keep 100% of the profits. But let’s say if you bring
in someone else into the business. Then you get a percentage of their sales too. And whoever they
bring in, you would get a cut too, and so on. This type of business is actually legal.But
if you think about it, it basically operates as a pyramid scheme. Because only a small number
of people make a lot of money, and it’s the people at the bottom doing all the work!
And Ruja would bring in these types of people on purpose. She recognized that established
multi-level marketing sellers with a huge base had the perfect type of people to market her fake
coin! This was THE secret of OneCoin's success. It was an old-fashioned pyramid scheme masqueraded as
a coin with a future. Company Holdings
OneCoin's corporate structure was incredibly complicated. Obviously, it was on purpose. For
example, Ruja bought a property in central Sofia. Technically it was owned by a company called One
Property. One Property was owned by another company called Risk Limited. THAT company was
owned by Ruja, but was then transferred to some unnamed Panamanians, but it was still
managed by another company called Peragon. And Peragon was owned by another company
called Artefix, which was owned by Ruja's mother, Veska. And back in 2017,
the ownership of Artefix was sold to an unknown man in his 20s! Is this needlessly complex? Yes,
if you’re running a legitimate business. But it’s absolutely necessary if you’re running one of the
biggest scams the world has ever seen! OneCoin’s “Business”
This scam quickly became one of the biggest scams the world has ever seen. What exactly was the main
business? Because really, just having a blockchain doesn’t mean anything. OneCoin’s main revenue was
supposedly from selling educational materials for trading. Members were able to purchase educational
materials for exorbitant prices ranging from 100 euros to 118,000 euros! Obviously, NO one
was buying any sort of educational packages. There was absolutely nothing that the company came out
with to generate revenue. Their only way to get money was to pitch investing in the company.
For every package that gets purchased, came tokens which the buyers can use to mine coins. Basically
the more money you spent, the more tokens you got, which meant the more coins you could
mine. And the only way of exchanging the mined OneCoins was through OneCoin’s own exchange.
In early June 2016, Ruja Ignatova walked on stage at Wembley Stadium in London in front
of thousands of investors. She told the cheering crowd that OneCoin was on course to become the
world's biggest cryptocurrency quote, "for everyone to make payments everywhere".
To some people, it sounded like free money that would give them the financial freedom
they’re looking for. And all they had to do was hand over their money to invest,
and not worry about anything else! Duped Investor
Plenty of people were convinced. For example, Jen McAdam. She invested €10,000 euros herself.
Not only that, she persuaded family members to put in an additional €250,000 euros! People
from over 175 countries invested back in 2016. Investors on the lower packages were convinced
to invest in bigger packages because of the extra benefits. Of course, investors were shown
the growth of their investments. The horrible truth was that those rising numbers were totally
meaningless. They were just numbers typed into a computer by OneCoin employees.
Jen was constantly told she was part of the OneCoin "family". She had a OneCoin leader
who got information from the headquarters in Bulgaria. And her leader prepared her carefully
for conversations with any OneCoin skeptics. Any criticism or awkward questions were actively
discouraged! This is basically how cults work. You always have to be able to think for yourself
NO MATTER the situation. Poorest Investors
Here’s the worst part. Remember when we said that OneCoin targeted tech-naive communities? Well,
typically that also means poor. OneCoin targeted the poorest people because they’re typically the
people who were the least educated. For example, thousands of Ugandans bought into OneCoin. It took
700,000 Ugandan shillings, or roughly $250 dollars to buy a OneCoin starter package. Poor investors
became increasingly important to OneCoin. That’s because in Europe, less money was
invested in the first six months of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016. But in Africa,
the Middle East and in India, it was the complete opposite. As the money started
drying up in Europe, promoters turned more and more to 3rd world and emerging countries. When
it comes to running a scam, they don’t care who it is they scam. Rich or poor, it doesn’t matter.
CTO Recruiting There were many people that doubted OneCoin,
as early as 2015. One such person was Bjorn Bjercke. After actually getting recruited by
OneCoin, he investigated deep within the company. They had wanted him to be Chief Technical Officer
for them, so he did due diligence on them. And he became one of the first people to discover
that there was no blockchain at all. There wasn’t ANYTHING invested in any technology!
Of course, when you're dealing with a scam involving billions of euros,
there are going to be people that don't want him to blow the whistle. According to Bjorn,
he learned in his research that Ruja had never expected OneCoin to grow so big.
It was never supposed to be a billion-dollar scam. She actually TRIED to shut it down,
but people in the underworld that she was connected to, wouldn’t let her
since they were making so much money. Anyone that was interviewed about their involvement
wouldn’t discuss any of the players involved with organized crime, except for one person.
Too much OneCoin grew to 10 million,
then quickly to 20 million, then 30 million, and it just quickly snowballed into the billions.
And with all the publicity stunts, and all the investor money rolling in, one day,
Ruja just disappeared. She was famously punctual. She was supposed to show up and talk at a European
OneCoin promoter meetup in Lisbon, Portugal, in October 2017. This was where she was supposed
to answer brewing questions of why payments had been delayed. But she never showed up.
However, even when she disappeared, the scheme didn't end. OneCoin kept running despite the
controversies surrounding the scam! Konstantin Ignatov
And this is where her brother comes in. Konstantin took over as CEO of OneCoin! He continued in the
footsteps of his sister even WITH the ponzi scheme controversy going on! Let’s be serious here, does
this guy look trustworthy here? Also, really, he has the word “Con” start his name? This simulation
we’re living in has a good sense of humor! Konstantin continued the scam, and promised
to take OneCoin above and beyond. He promised that an IPO of OneCoin would occur sometime
between 2018 and 2019 and it would make everyone rich. Obviously, the IPO repeatedly postponed,
and it never took place. Duped
Just how did SO many people get duped? Scammy sales tactics and persuasion. People fell hard
for the time sensitive sales tactics. And once they bought in, they were ALL in. It’s psychology
at this point. People don’t want to admit they were ever wrong. So they just doubled down.
No matter what the evidence is, it’s just human nature to protect their reputation,
intelligence, and identity. The fact of the matter is,
the vast majority of people make irrational decisions. Then they rationalize their decision
making afterwards to make themselves feel better. Even more amazingly, even after Ruja, Konstantin,
and Sebastian were officially charged, people CONTINUED to invest in the coin!
Despite all the evidence, investors simply just didn’t want to miss out on the next big thing. So
all they had going for them was hope and prayers. In March of 2018, Konstantin Ignatov was at LAX,
waiting to fly back to Bulgaria after some OneCoin meetings in the US. Just as he was boarding his
flight home, FBI agents arrested him and charged him with fraud in connection with OneCoin.
The Missing Crypto Queen Ruja is STILL missing today.
The last confirmed report is that she had flown to Athens back in October of 2017.
She’s officially charged in absentia with money laundering. Her partner and lawyer,
Sebastian Greenwood, was arrested around the same time as her brother. It’s interesting
seeing how her brother and her lawyer weren’t smart enough to disappear!
One popular theory is that Ruja is sailing around the world on a yacht. Of course,
support for this theory is limited. It leans mostly on the fact that Ruja liked
yachts. She had her own multi million dollar yacht docked in the Black Sea. She’d throw
regular parties on the boat and at her $2 Million Bulgarian manions that was close by. However,
the Staff claim they haven't seen her since 2017. As the hunt for the missing Crypto Queen
continues, authorities uncover a new piece of her lavish life almost every day. In 2021,
a German court found that Ruja spent $18.2 Million of stolen money on a luxurious mansion in London.
The four-bedroom luxury flat was packed with expensive artwork, including a rare Andy Warhole.
It also had a private swimming pool! Aftermath
During his trial, Konstatin gave up information about his sister. According to him,
she had gotten a passport and asked him to get her plane tickets to Vienna, Austria, and then Athens,
Greece. Where is she today? Nobody knows, and it feels like she’ll be on the run forever.
Konstantin eventually pleaded guilty in November 2019 to several charges that included money
laundering and fraud, as part of a plea deal. Yep, he decided to rat out his associates in
the underworld. According to official court documents, at least he has the option of
going in the witness protection program. Click to watch one of these next videos!
And let us know in the comment section what you would rather have right now,
a million in bitcoin or a million in another coin?