3. More Than Just a Coin

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When Doctor Rouge disappeared in October 2017, her younger brother Constantin, a tattooed bodybuilder who was her personal assistant, took over one coin and carried on where his big sister had left off. On March 6, 2019, Constantine was at Los Angeles International Airport. waiting to fly back to Bulgaria after having attended some OneCoin meetings in the United States. Just as he was boarding his Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, Konstantin was pounced on by FBI agents.

Arrested and charged with money laundering and fraud in connection with OneCoin. As this programme airs, Constantin is in prison in New York awaiting a pretrial hearing. On the same day, the US authorities charged Dr. Rouger in absentia and declared OneCoin a free. Could this be End of one coin. Spoiler alert, no. Episode three

More than just a coin. One family! You're amazing guys! In 2014, a 34-year-old business genius called Dr. Ruja Ignateva Launched an ambitious new cryptocurrency called OneCoin. In two years, nobody will speak about Bitcoin anymore. Thank you. How did you feel when you'd watch her videos? Oh my friend. The number one thing to come, where can I get money to make sure I can also be among this revolution? And the money started pouring in.

This song, Join the Financial Revolution, was all about the promise of one coin. scam. People believed they were getting in on the next Bitcoin. But it was all a lie. For a quarter month that money and I gave it to Ankoi. The woman behind it all, Dr. Ruja Ignatova, has disappeared. And it's starting to look like there's a lot more to one coin than we first thought. What sort of thing were you worried might happen? Getting shot?

One It's early April twenty nineteen and we're meeting Bulgarian business journalist Nikolai Stoyanov at his newspaper offices in Central Sofia. Thank you. You'll remember Nikolai was with us in Sozopol, where Dr. Rouge was last seen in public. On her luxury yachts. Nikolai was one of the first to start investigating OneCoin. Turn here and today has agreed to show us some places in Sophia that could be useful for our search.

So we should go this way back maybe we can go to the first building which Roger Natura bought. How many buildings has she bought? in the city here. I think my tour uh will only comprise of three buildings. One used to belong to the mayor. It looks a bit like the front of a grand old hotel. Literally a stone's throw away from the Parliament building. And the other had been Sophia's most famous restaurants.

like buying a new built house somewhere. It's a property with history and property which attracts public attention. I mean it is a stunning building. Absolutely incredible and it's kind of the front's all sort of sort you can't really see it the front gate's been kind of boarded up with some weird astroturf. Um I'm quite sad actually that it's just

Not being used. These properties are worth millions of euros. There's still a lot of money missing though, isn't there? There is. We don't know. Probably they are around the world. I being a book Bulgarian journalist. easily track the property deals in Bulgaria but we don't know. Probably property was bought also in various places around the world and we cannot possibly track down that.

It's been a month since the Department of Justice charged Dr. Rouge and her brother Constantin. You'll now see the building. Which makes the next stop on our tour even more surprising. Here it is. One coin headquarters. You have the one coin logos around in the bottom of it? Yeah, the whole building. Yes, it's six stories. A six story one thousand square meter building right in the heart of the city. This is where Dr. Rouge ran OneCoin up until her disappearance.

So what is surprising to me I suppose after everything that's happened that there's still a building here with all the logos are still on the building, all the signs, one coin on the front door. Is it still being run from here? Far as I know, yes. So the people still are working for one coin in there? I think they are. I mean what do you think what the people in that building now are actually doing? Well you can consider it like a back office. So all the selling was is is done in other places.

Here it is only technical stuff, the guys who are doing the accounting, the guys who are running their servers, their websites, their writing press material. But that's still part of the scab. That's not separate from The selling that's still that's still maintaining and running this and uh what here's what's surprised that we are a decent legal company and one of our key persons is under investigation and is suspected.

in the US. I'm not trying to defend them. I'm saying what is the story uh one coin is is selling to its investors and probably to its employees. Nikolai is clearly nervous about going in or even being spotted here. And as for us, we can't believe that one coin is still open for business. Um so the options are if we go in. Georgia and I discuss whether to try to get in because it is right in front of us. But the problem with one coin is that we don't really know who we're dealing with.

Well we don't I don't think we want them to know that we're here really. So I'd rather I think For now. That's something security guy there. He's the size of a tank. Should we go back? Let's go back. It exists. I genuinely thought it was an abandoned building. I didn't think they were going to still be there. We decide we don't want to blow our cover yet, and that it would be better to return here when we know more.

But the office is still open because people are obviously still buying and selling OneCoin. And when we look later that evening on the OneCoin Facebook pages, we're in for another surprise.

So this on Facebook, this is the OneCoin One Life Facebook page. Fifteen thousand members. Someone's put a poll on there. When will one coin exchange go live? This is one of the great mysteries. The whole thing about one coin was that you can buy these coins and then at some point There would be a public exchange where you could trade your one coins for real world money for dollars or pounds.

And the idea was that if you buy loads of one coins early, when this exchange goes live, you'll be able to sell them at an enormous profit like Bitcoin. So people poured all this money in and for the last Two and a half years the one coin bosses have been saying, Oh, the exchange is gonna open any minute now, next week, next month, it's just coming, it's next year, hold on, we've had a little problem, but it's definitely coming. So they've got a poll, they've put a poll, when will the one coin?

Exchange go live. This is only yesterday as well, isn't it? Yesterday the most popular answer is April twenty and nineteen. That's now. In spite of the fact that the two people that run one coin

are wanted by the FBI and one of them's been arrested. And they're wanted for fraud? I think when Constantine was arrested and Dr. Ruger was named as being wanted by the FBI, no one was gonna put any more money into it. Everyone was gonna kind of shake their heads and realise that the whole thing was a scam.

However, they're going on as if nothing's ever happened. This is ridiculous. The question on my mind is how people can believe unreservedly in something when there are so many unanswered questions. And how can they continue to believe even when the founder has disappeared and the new boss has been arrested?

Part of the answer is inside that one coin office in Central Sophia. We didn't get in, but we later spoke to someone who spent a lot of time there. Onecoin called itself the greatest company ever. People still describe it like that. His words are voiced by an actor because he's worried for his safety. At its peak, it was about 50 people working in the Safir office.

Rusha's office is on the fourth floor. You never saw her without the gypsy earrings, the gowns, the jewelry, everything. Even when she's just working in the office. Inside the Safir office, the Crypto Centre is where members of the One Life Network are allowed to meet members of the Sophir staff who are important. If you're out of favour, they won't let you in, or they'll keep you sitting there the whole day waiting.

It's set up almost like a cathedral. You don't speak out loud, you whisper to each other. It's all set in dark tones, everything is gilded. There was a big cardboard cutout of Rouchet. You see people touching it and doing that stupid one coin sign like it's an icon. It's gone now because it eventually fell apart because too many people were touching it. Doctor Rougea. Doctor Roucher. The biggest insult that you can give one life is to say that's not Doctor Rouge's vision.

I believe what makes us different is our vision. We are more than just one coin. We create a world around this coin. One coin is more than just a coin. It's a family, a revolution, and a brighter future, all rolled into one. I had a paradigm shift when I began studying Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. open my mind to wow this can really help a lot of people. One coin we're smart enough to take those elements and incorporate them into the scam. Timothy Curry, a Bitcoin enthusiast and one coin critic.

understands how difficult it is to argue with the faithful because every day he spends time online trying to warn people about one coin and usually without success. I made a decision. This is a scam. Do you understand what I'm saying? One person he tried to warn was Jen McAdam. You've already heard in episodes one and two that she'd invested ten thousand euros of her own money and persuaded friends and family to invest two hundred and fifty thousand of theirs.

She sent us the video of the two of them arguing in twenty sixteen. I do not believe it is a scar. When you and I got into cryptocurrency, we had a very similar experience. The way that OneCoin worked is they reeled you in with these sort of pitches. One of the big early things that they would push is This is going to bank the unbanked. And uh this is gonna be borderless money. They would pick up little catchphrases that

Or just forgotten by the big players. Why? Because they're poor, because they have needs that are not that interesting in the transactions, or simply because some of these people do not have proper documents. And then they began building this igloo around you. Uh Rouge is a doctor double PhD. And they start building this pyramid around or this igloo rather around you until it gets up and it's head high and and all of a sudden.

Ever it's just an echo chamber and nothing else can get in. There were many cultish things that the company did. The repetitive indoctrination, if you look at the top leaders, the w the way they dressed, the way that they showed things off. Ceremonial things almost like, especially on stage. Dr. Roja Ignatova! Everything from the musical introductions to Ruja to the theatrics, they really did create a a a worship behind her.

People would be like, bless you, Rouja, God bless you, we would you know. It became worship. Uh as soon as you buy your first package you're entered um into a one coin WhatsApp group They have many of'em, depending on what leader came in under. And that one coin leader then starts filtering information down from If you've any negativity you should not be in this group. You're told not to believe anything that from the outside world, that's what they call it, the outside world. Haters.

Bitcoin. Bitcoiners or haters. Even Google, don't listen to Google. Mm-hmm. I find it very interesting the way that the way that groups like this deal with outsiders. They're evil, they're bad. They're hate the the words that they use is haters. You're you're ad. Prove anything I've said. Ever anything prove any of it wrong? And I give you a hundred dollars. You need to stop harassing people and you need to stop upsetting people.

Yeah. Mm. I thought I've believed it i it was it was psychologically Not very well. Us they don't Tim it's so much information. that it was quite clear that this was a scam. And their answer was they're haters. The they're bitcoiners. Block them. Block them. Move on. And now that I'm raising awareness of this, they don't see me as a one coin investor. They've been told I'm a hater. And guess what? The things that Jen and Tim described have already happened to me and Georgie.

One coin, How to Destruct BBC Propaganda by Jamie Bartlett. On the day this podcast was released, I appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire program, which is a current affairs show on BBC Two. Within a few hours, someone had found that footage and edited it together to make me look stupid.

And claimed that the BBC was running a propaganda campaign against OneCoin. This Jamie Bartlett is not a serious journalist with ethical practices, it's like a children who want the attention and it's just for his personal interest, and the factual proof is here. This guy have posted his podcast on Apple. It's crazy, but nobody listen you, except your community totally asleep from Twitter. How rare?

They edited a silly red nose onto my face, Victoria Dubish had got one too, and started sharing it on their social media channels, adding hashtags like hashtag we love one coin and hashtag justice for one coin. I mean Jen as well, you you know I mean it was it was a sort of a f f FFFF.

cannot even speak correctly and he has pretended to have made serious investigations about one coin. They coordinated a mass complaint and flooded the BBC's complaints department even before episode one was released. Anything to undermine us and throw doubt on our integrity.

Serious answer, Jamie. You are a great reporter. We waiting your next incredible working, the next another part of your storytelling for the stupid morons who love to watch stupidity on the It seems silly, but at a time when lots of people don't trust mainstream media and have been told for years that Dr. Rouger is a genius leading an anti establishment revolution, this sort of thing can actually work. One coin is starting to look less like a cryptocurrency and more like a belief system.

I'm Eileen Barker. I'm a professor emeritus at the London School of Economics and I'm the founder of Inform, which provides information about minority religions. Professor Eileen Barker is not an expert in one coin or cryptocurrencies, but she is an expert on how and why people come to believe in things that others would consider completely irrational.

She spent her life examining Moonies, doomsday cults, and the millenarianists who believe that the world will end on a certain day, and then carry on regardless when it doesn't. She's found some interesting similarities between what she studied and OneCoin. People just keep investing. And it seems like a strange type of irrationality. They've invested. They've invested, yes. And they're expecting a return. So they're stupid not to hang around till they get the return.

I mean, you've got to believe it. The subconsistency theory, the psychologists would say. Like when prophecy fails, they'll believe more strongly. And particularly if you've invested something, I have invested this, not only my money, but my belief, my reputation. my intelligence in a sense. You don't want to lose that. And we wait a bit longer, work for it.

Go and gather more people. The end is nigh, except the end is sort of wonderful, it's not a terrible apocalypse, but it's when we're all going to be rich and everything. This group has made a very bold claim that it's not just about making money. that it's going to transform the world of finance and helping millions of poor people around the world. It's all this sort of messianic millenarian stuff. being part of something that's really big that's going to change the world.

And she's got this stuff about education. Now, it turns out as far as I can see that education means educating you to spend more money on me. But education is a good key word. They offer something to people. They are getting something out of it. And they may not be getting money out of it, but they're getting a sense of belonging, they're getting a sense Of achieving, of doing something. It's not just the money.

I mean the money plays a big bit in it and that may bring them in the first place. But why they stay, I'm sure, is because they're getting these other benefits as they see it. And in that sense it's cultic. And the little bits I've seen of this movement, or whatever we like to call it. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd.

Not all so called cults are like that, I really want to stress you can't generalise, but there are patterns. ymwneud â phobl, ymwneud â phobl, ymwneud â phobl, ymwneud â phobl, ymwneud â phobl. The leader, let's talk a little bit about the leader, Dr. Rudy Ignatova. She kind of came out of nowhere, and yet within the space of a year she is positioned as this

get incredible visionary. If she suddenly goes missing in October twenty seventeen. Then I would have thought that was the moment at which everyone said, Well it's obvious, isn't it? And all those other things that I'd been worried about that had been on the back of my mind, it's clear now that the game is up. But no, it just carried on growing, which is uh staggers me, astonishes me.

But you're not a believer. You she has discovered this. Sh she is a very special person and the world's trying to take it away from her. Mae'n ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud. Mae'n ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud. Mae'n ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud. She's looking after our interests. One woman we've spent a lot of time with is a very remarkable transformation, I suppose. She buys this stuff, she puts her money into it, she starts recruiting other people.

And several outsiders try to talk her out of it. And she says to us, It's like I didn't even hear them. Well that's them and us. And you're just jealous, you're ignorant, you're trying to get me away. And um I'm not gonna listen to you. This woman feels so guilty for having recruited her friends and family. She seats her up. That's very common. She's gonna have to take a lot of forgiving of herself.

Here's an uncomfortable truth. Even smart and decent people can be very gullible in the right conditions. People get drawn into movements that promise life-changing experiences all the time. And often it's not really about evidence or logic, but faith, belief and hope. And once you're operating on the level of faith, belief and hope, rational arguments rarely work, especially if it's more comforting to keep believing.

When Jen finally realised one coin was all a scam, she started to warn people. We had thirteen members. And within a few days we had other one coin investors that didn't know asking to join the group. And two years on, we have seven WhatsApp OneCoin victim support groups covering every continent.

And I know that um there's a lot of people out there just now that are utterly devastated. It's it's ripped the hearts out of families and individuals. I mean I speak to people every day that are are suicidal. And this is only the beginning. Most of them are still not aware of the reality. They want to keep their head in the sand. They don't want to hear this because they've gave everything they've got. They've sold their houses, lands, remortgaged. Their life changes.

a savings gone. Who wants to hear someone say, Listen, this is actually a scam? They don't want to hear that. And and I understand that. I I really do understand it because I I was there.

When we approached OneCoin and said that we intend to call them a scam, they responded. The BBC Podcast series is based on testimonials of haters, former employees. Who they say were either fired or disgracefully dismissed for internal company violations, intellectual property theft, and other violations. Thus the series will not present any truthful information and cannot be considered objective nor unbiased.

In response to the allegation that millions of people around the world who've invested in one coin cannot exchange or spend their one coin, and that one coin continues to promote this coin around the world, even though it's not publicly tradable, they said. We assure you we will be relieved when the regulatory obstructions constraining people's freedom and trading do not exist.

These restrictions are not up to us. We successfully and tenaciously use all legal means to a great extent and utilise them fully to facilitate the enforcement of the greatest possible freedom of trading and exchangeability. Over the next five episodes, we will return to the question of OneCoin's recruitment of investors and their marketing tactics, and we'll give OneCoin the opportunity to respond to our claims about the company. Na-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra

It's quite hard to grasp the scale of one coin. One coins say they have over three and a half million members, but that's never actually been proved. Jen has talked about the devastation on families she's spoken to and it seems widespread. But this just gives a hint as to the size. I got a text from him on Thursday morning out of nowhere, Georgia received a text message from a source, an insider that we'd been speaking to off the record. He had something incredible to give us.

Leaked documents that might help us answer that question. So are you saying the usernames of all the investors and all the money they've the amounts of money that they have put in? And when? Wow. All of this, all these files. Yeah. Sales. Wow. So the first bits of investment. So here we go. This is the very, very first sale on August the eleventh, twenty and fourteen. Issue a Crypto Queen. She selling it. The speed of growth fifteen million Euros January twenty fifteen.

Jeez, that's fast. This is unbelievable database, isn't it? This is everything. This is like the inner workings of the whole thing. This one week, thirtieth of May to the fifth of June. Fifty six billion Euros in one week put into this. That's unbelievable.

And look at the scale of the countries Virgin Islands, India, Switzerland, Malaysia, Brazil, Finland, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Ukraine, Russia, Norway, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Canada, Sink I mean it's It's crossing every continent, isn't it? Ivory Coast, Yemen. Uganda or Palestine. So that's one week and they've made sixty million euros in one week. Jesus, two million euros. invested from the UK in one week.

I've added these up so from the first of Jan to the fifth of June, minus two weeks. So that's just six months. It's coming out as twenty nine. Jeez. Twenty-nine million. The big one coin event which Jen's talked about Wembley Arena happened after this. How do you help? This thing's bigger than we thought. This is the first time any journalists have been able to look under the bonnet of one coin and see how big it really is.

Between August 2014, when the scam started, and March 2017, over 4 billion euros was invested from all over the world. And we know it's much bigger than that because the money kept coming in long after this period. Dr. Rouge didn't disappear until October that year. It could be that well over 100 million euros has been invested in one coin from the UK alone.

We've learned something very interesting. In three days time, OneCoin Romania are organizing a strange event. It's the world's first cryptocurrency beauty pageant. Nikolai has been digging around for us and he's got hold of a couple of phone numbers for us to try. A colleague from Romania sent me two phone numbers with two organizers. Christy Kallina or whatever was his name. Uh what he's running it. It's like a local one coin what they call IMA independent affiliate.

One coin is actually two connected organizations. There is one coin. Office we saw earlier, that creates and still maintains the one coins that are in people's accounts, runs the website, sets the price. Then there are independent marketing associates, the IMAs. They aren't directly employed by the OneCoin office in Sophia. They are part of something called the One Life Network. The IMAs, like Christy Kalina, promote OneCoin and make commissions selling packages to investors around the world.

Do you think the v the event's actually gonna take place? No, it seems high highly suspicious. I spoke to a colleague in Romania and he called the venue and they said they don't know anything about such event and it's coming in three days so basically. Consider yourself whether it's worth the time because there's a high probability there will be nothing there. I know but I love beauty pageants. For me. It's highly suspicious that you will just waste your time.

Oh yeah, don't use a public Wi Fi. No, I'm not, I'm just on four G. Despite Nikolai's scepticism, Georgia and I decide we need to try to get into this one coin one life event. According to their official website, there's gonna be four hundred people there.

representatives from all the major media outlets and they hope to reach an audience of between twenty and fifty million. Okay, so they should be really happy. This could be our only chance to get to an actual one coin event and see it from the inside. User busy. Okay. So we try to contact the organizer in Romania, Christi Kalina. I'm trying again straight away. I've got no patience. Wow, here we go. Come on. Hi, is that Christie?

Hi Christy. The BBC has strict privacy policy, so we can't actually play you his voice. But it's good news. Christy Kalina tells me that we can come to the event in Bucharest. We just need to email or call him back to confirm. Thank you very much. Bye. Right. Okay. Well then maybe it's gonna work. Maybe we're on. Over the next two days we try calling Christy? Yeah. Who hasn't replied to our email over and over again. Yeah, let's try again.

I just yeah, I got a feeling this isn't gonna get us anywhere, but let's give it a go. Please try again later. So annoying. We don't hear back from Christy Kalina. We're starting to build up a picture of OneCoin. A fake cryptocurrency spreads across the world like wildfire, luring in people like Jen who thought they were buying into the next big thing.

Dr. Rougea confused people with exciting technology and created a quasi-religious belief in her coin and her vision. We also now know roughly how big it is. But we don't know where the money is, how one coin really works on the inside. Who else might be involved? And we're no closer to finding Dr. Rouge. So we make a decision. So it's uh it's quarter to eight in the morning. Just woken up.

We're going to Bucharest. We're heading for the world's first cryptocurrency beauty pageant and more importantly, our first one coin event. We don't know. If there's gonna be anything there. We don't know if there's gonna be a beauty pageant or not. Well we're just gonna go there and I suppose we're gonna see what what's happening and and just keep our fingers crossed. So let's see. What will we find? Next time. So very loud

What's my name? Rujia. I think I might have heard something that someone was there and like the whole organizer of everything.

Over the next five episodes, we're inviting you to contact us with any information that might be valuable. CryptoQueen at bbc dot co dot uk I'm Luke and I'm live in Australia. We're already getting emails and calls from all over the world, from people whose family and friends have invested. And they've got their heart and soul invested in this the point that they've registered one coin number plate on their car.

I think they've bought into a vision, a dream and they feel like it's part of something bigger. That's why they defend it with even sort of cult like passion. They convince themselves it's real without any reputable proof and write off my concerns on the basis that there's a conspiracy by governments to shut it down. The FBI was set up to defend the US dollar. They have there's there's concern that it's spreading. Yeah. The service you called has cleared.

To the allegation that OneCoin is not a cryptocurrency, OneCoin replied, OneCoin verifiably fulfills all criteria of the definition of a cryptocurrency. Its value is confirmed and reflects the constant worldwide trading activities that such as the Dealshaker platform, one of the major global trading platforms and elsewhere. Trading, one coin says, is slowed down by authorities, regulators and haters.

We have asked OneCoin for further proof or evidence against any of our claims, and if we get any proof we'll include it later in the series. The Missing Crypto Queen is a BBC radio documentaries production for BBC Sounds. BBC propaganda by Jamie Well hang on, don't forget Georgia Kat, she's the co-writer and the producer. The story consultant is Chris Beroube and Philip Sellers is the editor.

Sound design and music is from the talented Phil Channel, and we're delighted to say that some of the music you've been hearing has been especially composed and performed by Decislava Stefanova and the London Bulgarian Choir. Not this bit. If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this programme, help is available at bbc.co.uk forward slash action line. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello Pepper.

Hello. We could do this forever. I know we could. Robots are starting to provide education, care, and even affection. As the world transforms, we're asking, will human contact become a luxury? The Beyond Today podcast. One big question about one big story every day. Listen now on BBC Sounds.

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