The Missing Cryptoqueen

An update

There is one question I get asked more than any other: when is the next episode of The Missing Cryptoqueen coming out?

I always try to answer this question, since it’s a privilege that people actually care. But I know many people have been waiting, and roughly a year ago we promised something would be out ‘soon’. It’s still not ready. More than one person has said there should be a follow up podcast called “The Missing The Missing Cryptoqueen.”

So here is a quick update – plus some reasons.

Not everyone who listens to the podcast now will realise that the first eight episodes (originally published weekly in Autumn 2019) were made the same week they were broadcast. Producer Georgia Catt and I wanted the story to be driven by listener tips and sightings. When we started, we didn’t know where the series would end – which is not how these things are usually made. I remember sitting with Georgia at the BBC studios when we hit ‘publish’ for episode 6. We had no clear idea what would be in episode 7, and just one week to make it. That was a high-risk strategy, but we were trying something new. Many listeners seemed to enjoy the live, on-the-hoof feel of the series, which is very hard to fake.

The problem with this approach, however, is that events are unpredictable. Leads and storylines can hit sudden dead-ends. People go quiet. And although we haven’t stopped working on the series (the official email account still gets tip-offs and sightings), the story has become far more complicated over the last 12 months.

First, court cases in the US continue to rumble on. Ruja’s brother Konstantin Ignatov – who turned state witness after his arrest – remains on call whenever government prosecutors need him. Sebastian Greenwood – the OneCoin co-founder along with Ruja – recently pleaded guilty to his role in the scam after much deliberation. In September 2023, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A British man, Christopher Hamilton was also indicted in the US on money laundering charges – although a British judge ruled last month he should faces charges in the UK instead.

Court cases like this can complicate matters, because they sometimes reveal new lines of enquiry that need to be looked into. (What people listening might not realise is how much you don’t hear: hours upon hours of work just don’t make the cut). These difficulties are easily resolved. The other problems, less so.

The first major surprise is the unexpected disappearance of Frank Schneider, the former Luxembourgish spy who was Ruja’s all-purpose security advisor. If anyone knows about Ruja’s disappearance, it’s Frank. According to court testimony, Frank arranged for someone to snoop on Ruja’s boyfriend, and advised her on purchasing diplomatic passports (which he denies). In 2020 Frank was indicted in the US on money laundering charges and placed under house arrest in France while he appealed.

I interviewed Frank in the last episode of the podcast.

Frank handed me a memory stick of documents that might help our investigation, which included law enforcement PowerPoint slides Ruja had managed to illegally acquire. It was a big breakthrough in the case, and I felt like we were really starting to get somewhere. Frank lifted his trouser leg to show me the heavy duty ankle bracelet that prevented him leaving his front gate – that’s how much the US valued him.

That bracelet obviously wasn’t heavy duty enough, because at some point earlier this year, Frank took off and hasn’t been seen since. (I don’t understand why this hasn’t picked up more news coverage, but that’s another story.)

Frank is presumed on the run, like his old boss. Obviously he doesn’t reply to any of our messages. His whereabout are unknown – and as a former spy, you’d expect he knows how to fly under the radar. He used to live in Dubai, but going there to snoop around isn’t really an option. I knew Frank was nervous about what awaited him, but I didn’t see that coming. To lose one person is unfortunate, as Oscar Wilde once said about parents. To lose two looks like carelessness. His disappearance has certainly complicated matters.

And it got worse. In early 2023 a respected Bulgarian news outlet called bird.bg reported that Ruja had likely been murdered in November 2018, on the orders of the well-known drugs king-pin, Hristoforos Amanatidis aka ‘Taki’.

Taki had been on Interpol’s Red Notice list - although he was later removed.

The article alleged that Ruja had been laundering Taki’s money through OneCoin.  Taki, the article claimed, was worried Ruja might get caught and flip. He couldn’t take the risk. The details were graphic, grim. One of Taki’s guys had killed Ruja onboard a yacht off the Greek coast. Her body was chopped up and dumped in the sea. It’s certainly plausible – she has been gone for over six years now. But the more I’ve dug into this, the more elusive it is. The source of the story was an unsigned, untitled piece of paper that was found in the safe of a murdered Bulgarian police officer. The paper claimed one of Taki’s guys was overheard drunkenly talking about her death, a year after it happened. Doesn’t mean it’s not true, but it’s another maybe. And no-one talks.  

If Ruja was tied up in these kinds of circles – and it looks fairly certain she was – then extreme violence was and is part of her world.  Soon after the Taki theory was published, an even more worrying report came out of South Africa.  In May 2023 a Bulgarian mobster called Krasimir Kamenov was gunned down in his house in Cape Town, along with wife and housemaids. Kamenov was a one-time associate of Taki. It was rumoured Kamenov was planning to talk to the FBI about Dr Ruja and her money laundering.

Krasimir Kamenov also had an Interpol Red notice. Unlike Taki’s his was still in force at the time of his murder.

It’s hard to know why Kamenov was murdered. Bulgarian criminal groups are a complicated mess, and Kamenov has upset a lot of people in different ways. And again, the people who might know don’t talk.  

All this has made the story of OneCoin more complicated and more dangerous. If I’m honest, I never planned to investigate organised crime groups. It’s not something I know much about. When I started looking into OneCoin back in late 2018, I saw it as a simple crypto-scam story. Would I have taken this on if I knew where it would lead? I honestly don’t know.  

So no, we haven’t forgotten. Quite the opposite: we’re as obsessed with getting to the bottom of this as ever - but it’s taking longer than planned. Amazingly, people are still investing in OneCoin today, and I fear they won’t stop until everyone knows what really happened Dr Ruja. That’s motivation enough to keep going – wherever it takes us.