12. Wanted: Dead or Alive?

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I know, I know, it's been a while. So long that the price of Bitcoin has doubled in value breaking its previous record. But one coin is still worth nothing. Anyway, I'm sorry it's taken so long. And you're about to find out why. found herself in a very different world to the one we knew about. So have we. If you don't listen, you just disappear from Earth. But we haven't disappeared yet, so welcome back.

Because you've not heard from us for more than a year, here's a quick reminder of the story. Recap music, please. In 2014, Dr. Ruja Ignatova told investors she'd created a brand new crypto. Currency that would change the world. She called it OneCoin. And I believe we are a very special network because we really. Act as a family. By late 2016, Dr. Rouge was jetting around the world addressing adoring fans. One family! You're amazing guys! Millions of people from almost every country on earth.

Had invested billions in her promise of a financial revolution. Three goods. You sold some goats. You did that for one coin. That way not other way. But on the twenty fifth of October, As her investors were to turn their one coin into dollars or euros, Dr. Rouge aboarded a Ryanair flight from Sophia, Bulgaria to Athens, Greece and disappeared. She didn't react on the email, not on the WhatsApp, or nothing. Nothing helped. And nobody

OneCoin was just an old-fashioned pyramid scheme. It didn't have the underlying technology needed to power a cryptocurrency. I know they didn't have a blockchain they couldn't have. For more than five years, Georgia Cat and I have been trying to expose the fake cryptocurrency OneCoin and find out what happened to its founder, Dr. Rouge, when she stepped off that Ryanair flight. In twenty nineteen we travelled all over the world following Leeds.

Can I ask who owns this boat? This is yeah, something. I know, yeah, the cigar smoke is getting pretty overwhelming. We felt like we'd got close. It's possible that she could have been there. Maybe closer than we realized. She was there, at Miss One Life, sitting at the table. You've seen her without knowing it was her. You were in the same room. But then the trail went cold. Until

2022. Let's now go out to New York here and listen to the FBI as well. When the FBI added Dr. Rougea to their ten most wanted fugitives list, we ask that anyone who has information about Ignatoba's whereabouts To call us at 1-800-Call FBI. Where she still is today, the most wanted woman in the world. It felt like the net was closing in on Dr. Rouge, and people close to her were being arrested and jailed. But Dr. Rougea is still missing. In the last episode Mr.

We interviewed Dr. Rouge's fixer, the former spy Frank Schneider, who was under house arrest in France, wanted by the US for his role in the OneCoin scam. Are you wearing an ankle bracelet? Yes, I am. I've got used to it, it's uh you know, that's one of those things. Oh right, yeah. Frank told us that Rouge had got involved with some very dangerous people and was probably dead. There is no reason to then believe in a nice outcome.

But since then, things have got even darker. I have reason to be afraid. More mysterious. You never see him, you only hear about him. He is talking to you through other people. And maybe even more dangerous. including for us. I'm supposed to be like a technology uh person, that's what I write about. Not any of this stuff. This is the missing crypto queen. Episode twelve. Wanted, dead or alive.

So I'm just out walking in central London going to a meeting. It's February 2023 and a few weeks earlier we'd left you with a short update. It was from a curry house in East London where OneCoin promoters were meeting. We were working on some exciting new leads. Thailand, Greece, Dubai. Our new producer Rob even spent days investigating a tip off. that Rouge was driving around the Scottish Highlands in an Aston Martin. Doo doo doo doo doo. But then on one windy morning my phone starts.

Beeping like crazy. It's got sent some information. Which basically says that Dr. Rujya Ignateva was killed. Journalists in Bulgaria have published a story that Rouge isn't on the run, she's been murdered. I take out my phone and record a voice note. Just to capture the moment. in case It's a strange feeling if that's true, it's a really strange feeling because you know I'd um even though we were trying to find this woman, trying to work out what happened to her, wanted to face a judge. Um

So I finish my meeting early, rush home, and phone one of the journalists behind this new story. Atanas, hi Atanas Chabanov. He's not in Bulgaria though. It's too dangerous. Atanas was handed secret documents by a mafia boss, apparently recovered from the home of a murdered police officer, and in these documents a possible answer, at last. The content is extremely interesting, it's pretty credible because of the other details in those documents.

These new documents place Rouge in a dangerous world. She'd somehow got involved with one of the most infamous names linked to the Bulgarian underworld. He's known as Taki. We'd heard that name before. A suspected Drugs Kingpin. According to these documents, someone close to Tacky was overheard talking about Rougea. He was drunk and he told the company that uh Rouge is over, she was killed on a yard. where a body was thrown in the waters of Yonian.

Did he say who was behind this murder? Tucky. Why? To to hide uh his uh involvement in the one coin uh scam. According to the report, Rouge's body was dismembered and thrown into the Mediterranean Sea, where no one would ever find her. Or the full story about OneCoin.

But I wasn't convinced. There's no body, no eyewitnesses. It's based on an informant's account of a drunken conversation relayed to a police officer who then wrote it up in a report. And what really bothered me was that according to this document, Rouge was murdered in around late 2018. But we've received credible sightings of her long after that date. Several in Greece, where Rouge first fled. So we called up the restaurant in Athens.

Remember this sighting from twenty nineteen? And then we emailed them across some photos of Doctor Rouge. And they got back to us last night. Yeah. Dear Georgia, Lady in Photos seems familiar to staff. They all remember this lady with a party of six or eight. And since the last episode I spoke to an experienced Greek journalist called Dimitra Triantophilu,

She'd been told by a trusted senior source inside the Greek police that they had intelligence that Rouge was travelling around Greece in 2022. That's over three years after this alleged murder. He actually said there is a vast net of people, ex-partners. ex friends, you know, m maybe even ex members from family that are giving and exchanging information from one country

to another and she was going to meet certain people and have, you know, certain let's say meetings, appointments, I don't know how to call them. But right now we have a very active operation trying to cut Ruja Ignatova. All this net of information opens doors on her story and how to catch her. Do you know whereabouts? She was going to meet them? No, they didn't answer on that. Or how many people she was with? Neither. Or how she'd travelled? Neither. Hmm.

Not long after this information from Greece, I get a strange message. I need to share it with Rob and Georgia right away. But by this point I'm actually getting pretty paranoid and I don't want to send it via my phone. That's why I didn't want to send this via email. So I get Rob to cycle over to my house where I play him the messages in my back garden. He doesn't know anything. I just tell him it's important. Come right away. I promise to keep the person who sent this anonymous.

They contacted me from an upmarket holiday resort in the British Virgin Islands. She's paying out of cash twenty thousand dollars a night. Their words are voiced by an actor. She very much looks like the person, wears sunglasses all the time, doesn't allow staff near her. She has the windows drawn, multiple suitcases, different colours with different padlocks on them.

We're all kind of realizing this is someone on the run. We looked up women on the run and we literally had our jaws on the floor from obviously seeing her. This was the same woman. That woman being Dr. Ruja Ignateva. Her face now plastered across the FBI's most wanted website. They make the call. The FBI was contacted. They came yesterday and took her fingerprints digitally and they took her fingerprints by ink. It's pretty big, isn't it?

Was I mean was it worth c cycling over for? I don't think the FBI would go there unless they really thought this was a lead worth pursuing. Then they were there yesterday doing fingerprints. I think it could be quite a big lead. So the only problem is we don't know what I don't know what we're supposed to do with it. Let's um let's have a think about it now. Yeah. Well Okay, yeah. It was worth the cycle.

We make more calls to other people on the island. No one wants to talk. The FBI won't comment either. The local police tell us they've let this woman go. Because here's the problem. Rouge can't have died in 2018 and then turn up in an Athens restaurant the following year and in police intelligence reports in 2022 and in the Caribbean in 2023.

And after years of trying, I managed to meet someone who might be able to help us make sense of all this. My name is Richard Reinhardt, and I was the lead investigator for IRS criminal investigation on the Long Queen case. The man who kicked off the entire US investigation into OneCoin. I meet Richard Reinhardt in an Irish pub in New York in early twenty twenty four. He's recently left the Internal Revenue Service IRS, which is why he can now talk to me.

Richard looks and sounds like a New York cop from a movie. Good looking, tough looking. A smoker who every now and again pops outside in the freezing New York winter for a cigarette. It's definitely uh the most interesting story I came across in twenty six years. This was a very sophisticated woman, this was not your run of the mill white collar criminal. This isn't even like a white collar criminal. This is like a white collar criminal combined with

drug trafficker, like big time drug trafficker, or mafia guy on steroids. Or when you heard that someone was making a podcast about or story that you guys were also working on What did you think? Do you want the honest answer? Yeah. Like damn it, he beat us to the punch. The things you heard are just unbelievable because when we heard the podcast we were like, oh, he got to go to all these cool places that we didn't get to go to t to listen to these people.

Earlier in his career, Richard worked as a drug enforcement agent, but in 2015 he was given the job of investigating cybercrime for the IRS. Literally that same weekend, you know, that probably happened midweek that same weekend, I'm just going through different like covert accounts I have and I get a one coin email. And I'm just like, this just doesn't seem right.

And for the next two years, Richard investigated OneCoin, later joining forces with the FBI. And he remembers the precise moment Rouge decided to vanish. Just 24 hours before Rouge aboarded that Ryanair flight and disappeared in October 2017, she's in Bulgaria on the phone to her boyfriend Gilbert Armenta. Hello? Yes, hi, how are you being? I'm doing okay.

Gilbert's in New York, sitting in a hotel room. For weeks the pair had been talking most days. Okay, so we'll meet probably next next week you say? Yeah. Gilbert was trying to persuade Rougea to leave Bulgaria and come visit him. But Rouge was evasive, unsure. I really worry about you. Like is there anything that you can tell me or whatever? I don't know. Are you okay? And sitting right next to Gilbert was Richard, recording every word.

Gilbert had been helping Rouge squirrel away the stolen one-coin money, but he'd been secretly arrested and was now working with the authorities to try to catch her. I really would love to see you. I need to get out of here. Yeah. And desperately get out of here. We're doing behind the scenes stuff of trying to okay, where can we get her here? Where can we get her? Then we're like narrowing down places. I think they should come a little with me.

This is why we have to buy a new country. We we'll go buy Costa Rica. She's asking. Where are you? Where are you? You've never not been here this long. Where are you? But then Gilbert says a word out of place. A slip of the tongue. And that was all it took. Something to the effect of I'm just trying to keep these cops off my ass, basically. Click. Teri teri teri teri teri teri teri teri teri

That quick. There was no goodbye or you're a scumbag or I know what you're up to. It was just click, gone. Then now we're like where is she? I asked Richard about the various sightings we've had, and what the FBI might be getting now Rouge is on their ten most wanted list. 2019 summer. We are told in a restaurant in Greece they remember her being there in 2019. Did you get any of that?

At that point we're listening to your podcast hoping you come across something. Cause again, like we don't have the luxury of hopping on a plane and just going to a foreign country and saying, let's follow this lead. So no. Nothing. And we did not receive that same claim. But at that time she's not on the top ten list, so We were told by a journalist in Greece that in July 2022 there was a police raid on a property. Were you ever aware of a of a Greece police raid? No.

Is the FBI still receiving tip-offs and leads? I would assume yes, but I we don't sit there so I have no clue how many they get a day. Okay, April 2023. We are tipped off that this that Rouge is staying in the British Virgin Islands and is uh a strange woman's turned up with suitcases full of cash and she's wandering around, she's hiding in her room.

Did you have a similar tip-off? I had a similar experience. What what can you say about this British Virgin Islands? It was just another bad lead. Did you go did you go there and look into this? It was another bad lead. That British Virgin Islands lead was a case of mistaken identity. A woman that looked and maybe even acted like Rougea. But it wasn't her.

And after weeks of digging, producer Rob actually managed to find that woman. He even spoke to her, but she didn't want to be recorded. She was very shaken up by everything. But she confirmed to that yes, the police had taken her fingerprints. It shows though that the FBI are still pursuing leads.

But Rouge has not been seen for nearly seven years. So I have to ask an obvious question. Is there discussion inside the authorities at the moment, do you think, about this theory about her being dead? Are they trying to figure it out? Oh I I mean obviously I'm not there now. We're gonna entertain any theory that comes across the desk. What's your sense on your your sort of percentage, dead or alive?

Um sixty dead, forty alive. I think I say sixty forty for myself, because I still do want to see her found. The the believable side of me probably is eighty twenty. There's a good part of me that just knows there's with that much cash, if she has access to liquid cash, you could run forever. I want to know what Richard can say about Rouge's connections with organized crime. As you know a an individual, uh Taki or I think Taki is the name.

And that was responsible for like her physical security. Guys outside your house type of thing. How did you hear that he was He was involved in a personal security. Through different people interviewed along the way. And it we can it came up more than once if that was a recurring theme. Yep. What do you know about him? He was the head of whatever this drug organization was. We just told big time drug guy provides her physical security.

Taki is a mysterious man. He's widely suspected of being the head of a Bulgarian organized crime group and a prolific drug smuggler. In Bulgaria, he and his associates have been investigated for armed robbery, drug smuggling, and murder. But he's never been prosecuted. At one stage he was the subject of an interpol red notice, but that too was dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Former Bulgarian Deputy Minister Ivan Haristanov investigated allegations that Taki ran a criminal network with the help of corrupt officials. You never see him, you only hear about him. He is talking to you through other people. If you don't listen, you just disappear from earth. It's obvious that the Bulgarian agencies worked for this couple, Ruja and Taki. The only person who can protect her physically, but most importantly, protect her.

from all those investigations, including from uh foreign agencies. It was Tacky. US court records we found also suggest Tacky was directly involved in Rouge's disappearance. In a bail hearing for Rouge's brother Constantin, a US government lawyer doesn't name Tacky, but we believe it's who she's referring to here.

The head of security at OneCoin is a large-scale international drug trafficker. Her words are read by an actor. And it's actually that same head of security that was involved in the disappearance of the defendant's sister when she absconded from the filed charges in her case. According to Richard, that disappearance would have been planned. And there's one person we've already spoken to who might know how Rougea and Tacky pulled it off. The exit strategy was was there already.

So it's just a matter of hitting the go button. There's no way A person not visible. could go that quickly without making a mistake if it wasn't set up pre planned. Who is the person that you think would know about that exit strategy? Frank Schneider, the former spy. When we went to see Frank Schneider in the last episode, we always thought he might not be telling us the whole story.

So we wanted to go back to Frank while he was under house arrest to ask more questions about Tacky, about those connections. There was only one problem. On the verge of being extradited to the US, this former top spy from Luxembourg. copied his old boss. I've no idea how Frank did it, but the ankle bracelet he showed me can't have been that effective. Because sometime around April twenty twenty three,

Frank Schneider vanished. Frank Schneider aus Firo and Kurzfiro singer Ausliferung and Duasa. Who's he really running from? The authorities?

The Missing Crypto Queen started off as a story about a crypto scam. That's what I thought I was investigating. But sometimes stories take you places you don't really want to go. And this is going way out of my comfort zone. So we needed help. We brought in Dimitar Stoyanok. He worked with Atanas on the story about Rouge being murdered. This story is unique in my career. He's been investigating organized crime in Bulgaria for over a decade.

The story is really complicated. Take is just one of many persons involved in this story, but he is a very, very dangerous man. Along with us and some other colleagues from BBCI investigations and panorama. Dimitar kept digging into this theory, talking to his contacts in the Bulgarian underworld. And it seems Rouge was even more involved with organized crime than we first realized. Dimitar was able to confirm the documents found in the murdered police officer's house are authentic.

And other off-record sources told him a similar story, that Rouge was killed because she'd become a liability. that she's she's murder and I think uh it is very very possible version. But here's the thing. Why would Tacky want to silence Rougea? You might remember that Frank Schneider, before he disappeared, handed us leaked files from Operation Satellite.

That was the codename for the International Police Investigation into Rouge and OneCoin. And it turns out Operation Satellite was looking into the relationship between the pair. The words are read by an actor. According to Bulgarian information, Ignatova Vruja has connections with the Bulgarian drug trafficker Amanatidis Christophoros Nikos. Nicknamed Taki. Taking into account that Ignatova's money comes from UAE towards Bulgaria, there is a suspicion that Amanatides launders money that way.

Is this the possible motive then for the alleged murder? Taki provided the security, the protection, and in exchange, Rougea used one coin to help move money around. And once he knew the authorities were onto her, perhaps she stopped being useful and became a liability. She knew too much. But maybe it's something else. We're still not sure. Knowing how violent cartels are?

if he thought she was a threat to him and he had access to her one hundred percent, I would he would probably take her out instead of getting caught one hundred percent. And he the benefit is he knows where her money is too, so But do I know that? No. I but that would make sense if in fact she is not here. We tried to reach Tacky to put the allegations in this podcast to him. His lawyers did not respond.

We asked the Bulgarian government about allegations state agencies worked for Rouge and Taki. It did not reply. But the prosecutor's office in Sophia said it does not cover up crimes, nor persons who have possibly committed crimes.

For years I've been trying to find this one woman. It's kind of taken over my life. I get stopped on the street and asked about her. When we started in late 2018, Rougea had been missing for just over a year. It's now been nearly seven. So much has happened and Georgia and I need to catch up. So we grab a coffee at the BBC and go through what we've just heard. Cảm ơn các bạn đã theo dõi và hẹn gặp lại.

So is it working? Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Come prepared. Yeah, well. I haven't got any notes. Think back to when we f very first met. And started. This whole story, right? I never thought it would could end up like Bulgarian organized crime. That was never in my mind. I never imagined it. And to be honest I wonder if I'd have known all that, whether I'd have wanted to do it. It's not what I it's not my thing, it's not what I look at. Yeah, I don't know anything about it.

But also I think that there is so much like myth around this story, isn't there? And so from the beginning there have been people that have said this is very, very dangerous. There's dangerous people involved. And I suppose if this turns out to be true, then it it's not a myth, it's concrete. When you look at it all, what do you reckon?

It's not impossible, is it? It would fit into other stuff that we've heard. Yeah. That we know. It's a good theory, it's the recent theory, it's credible when you add it all up. I think about all those other sightings we've had, really credible sightings, it just it feels like maybe it's not quite it's not the end of it. It's been seven years. I mean, we started it was one year since she'd gone and I thought, Oh, we'll probably find her.

But every year that goes past there's been no a solid confirmed photograph, video. After a while you start to think, how long can you really completely disappear for? Do you think that? Because I mean there are so many other people that have managed to stay missing for so long. And potentially she's got access to huge resources and money. It's taken so much of our life. And what at what point do we say we give up? We're not gonna get any further than we've got.

We still don't have the answers though, so I don't feel that it's over. No, I don't think we're gonna stop just yet because I think we still don't know enough. I can't help think about all those sightings. The fact she remains on the FBI's 10 most wanted lists. And it wouldn't surprise me if someone was trying to put us off the scent. Because if everyone thought Rouge was dead, that would be very convenient for a lot of people. Especially her. Something tells me that the story isn't over yet.

The whole murder thing is like on top of the list now, right? But that's cause that's the freshest one out there. If somebody came out and called you up tomorrow and said, Mr. Bartlett, I know for sure I saw her. in Greece, you you're packing up your crew and you're going, right? It's gonna lead you on a trail, it's gonna keep you in Greece for however long until you disprove that theory. So if a new theory came out tomorrow, that's what everybody's gonna be talking about.

But I could tell you if there was like definitive proof that she was murdered, you know, they don't just keep people on the FBI's top 10 list for fun. Like they don't want people on there if they don't have to have them on there. So if that was disproved, she would be off that list. It's still a theory then, if she's still on that list. Yeah. It's a good mystery.

And as ever, if you have any leads or information that you think might help us, please email cryptoqueen at bbc.co.uk. We'll be back in the autumn with some new episodes. The Missing Crypto Queen was presented by me, Jamie Bartlett. It was written by me and Rob Byrne. Rob Byrne was the producer. The executive producer was Georgia Catt. The music is by Phil Channel and Desislava Stefanova and the London Bulgarian Choir.

The commissioner is Dylan Haskins. The series editor is Philip Sellers. It's a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Sounds on BBC 5 Live. A secret war against invisible enemies. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the Darkest follows the investigations of US special agents, their work internet. So that the person's identity is clouded from everybody else. Secret world. images are shared and traded. World of Secrets. Listen now.