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German cops confirm clues that wanted global ‘cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova may be in South Africa

German cops confirm clues that wanted global ‘cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova may be in South Africa
Konstantin Ignatov, the brother of FBI-wanted Ruja Ignatova, was arrested in the US in 2019. Before that, based on his Instagram account, he visited various places including Cape Town. (Photo: Instagram)
Caryn Dolley
By Caryn Dolley
17 Nov 2024
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Daily Maverick has reported before on wanted global ‘cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova’s possible ties to South Africa, and Cape Town in particular. Now police in Germany are looking into clues that she may be here, which contradicts reports that she was murdered at sea.

She is living it up in Dubai. 

She was murdered at sea in 2018. 

She was fatally shot in a home in the upmarket Cape Town suburb of Constantia last year. 

She had plastic surgery to disguise herself and is staying in a lavish part of Cape Town.

These are just some of the stories and theories surrounding Ruja Ignatova, the Bulgarian-born German citizen wanted by countries including the US.

She is at the centre of the biggest global billion-dollar crypto fraud scheme yet, known as OneCoin.

https://youtu.be/638_Jpp2Rq8?feature=shared

And the US is offering a $5-million reward to see to it that she is arrested and convicted.

Ignatova is arguably the world’s most wanted woman.

At the same time, though, there are several stories doing the rounds that she has been murdered.

Clues point to South Africa


Now, police in Germany have confirmed to Daily Maverick that they are looking into whether she may be alive – and in South Africa.

News that clues about Ignatova’s whereabouts were pointing to South Africa was first reported on in Germany, including in a documentary.

German publication Der Spiegel also ran an article on 8 November 2024 saying that police there suspected that previous reports of Ignatova’s death were false and that they were following leads in South Africa.

Read more: Constantia killings and FBI-wanted ‘cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova’s intriguing SA links

On Friday, 15 November, Daniela Dässel, a spokesperson for the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia, confirmed to Daily Maverick that she had made statements reflecting what was reported on in Germany.

She said that due to a lack of solid information or evidence to the contrary, it was assumed “that Ruja Ignatova is alive”.

The search for her was therefore continuing.

Dässel said investigators were following up on clues that pointed to the possibility that the “wanted” person was in South Africa.

She said further information could not be provided.

Ignatova Crime scene experts process a multiple murder scene involving four foreigners in Constantia on 25 May 2023. It is reported that two women and two men believed to be from Bulgaria were discovered with gunshot wounds. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)



Crime scene experts at the Constantia property on 25 May 2023. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)


Constantia killings and suspicions


Daily Maverick has previously reported on how Bulgarian suspects wanted by police may be in South Africa, and how there are possible connections between Ignatova and this country.

Some of those issues are rooted in May 2023, when Krasimir Kamenov, his wife Gergana, and two of their employees were fatally shot in their home in Constantia.

All four were from Bulgaria.

Read more: SA caught in Bulgaria’s underworld web of dirty global politics as ‘links’ between oligarch and Prigozhin emerge

At the time of his murder Kamenov was wanted in that country.

Daily Maverick previously reported that the embassy of Bulgaria said that on 6 April – 49 days before Kamenov and the three others were murdered– it had told South African authorities that he was in the country and that he faced arrest.

Kamenov’s murder kicked up wide-ranging suspicions about criminality, some of it politically driven, in South Africa and Bulgaria.

Read more: Constantia killings — police ask public to help trace two suspects in 2023 Bulgarian murder mystery

It also sparked several theories and suspicions.

In the months after Kamenov’s killing, speaking to various sources with ties to policing and security, Daily Maverick heard that some individuals suspected – or peddled the idea – that Ignatova was among those shot dead in the Kamenov home.

Ruja Ignatova, of Bulgaria, is one of the FBI's top 10 most wanted suspects for her alleged role in a global cryptocurrency scam. Picture: Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Photo: FBI)


Theories


There was nothing to substantiate that and when police provided Daily Maverick with the identities of those murdered, she was not named as one of them. 

Other suspicions that surfaced following the Kamenov murders included that Ignatova had fled to Dubai, or that she had plastic surgery to disguise herself and was hiding out in Constantia. 

A “wanted” flyer from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states: “Ignatova is believed to travel with armed guards and/or associates. Ignatova may have had plastic surgery or otherwise altered her appearance.”

Some sources believed international intelligence agencies were involved in protecting Ignatova and were peddling ideas of her whereabouts, and strange related stories, to distract from where she really was.

Nothing concrete emerged to substantiate the theory that she was in Constantia.

Constantia killings suspects Police are urging the public to get in contact if they have information about the two people depicted in these images. The duo may have information about the murders of four individuals in a Constantia home in May 2023. Among those killed was Krasimir Kamenov, who was wanted in Bulgaria in connection with an assassination in that country. (Photo: South African Police Service)



Police are urging the public to get in contact if they have information about the two people depicted in these images. (Photo: South African Police Service)


Wanted suspects


As for the Kamenov killing case, in March this year the police in the Western Cape publicised photographs of two men they suspected had been part of the murders.

They also said six suspects were spotted fleeing the Kamenov home in a blue Hyundai and white VW Golf GTI following the shooting.

They have not announced any arrests in connection with the murders.

Daily Maverick contacted the Western Cape police on Friday morning to find out if there had been any updates in their investigations, or if they were aware of suspicions that Ignatova may be in the country.

A response had not been received by the time of publication.

Kamenov’s name had increasingly been referenced in Bulgaria by the time he was killed.

constantia killings From left: Ruja Ignatova is one of the FBI’s top 10 wanted suspects. She allegedly ran a billion-dollar crypto scam that was based in Bulgaria, but operated globally. (Photo: FBI website) | Krasimir Kamenov was one of four people murdered in Constantia, Cape Town, on 25 May.2023. He was wanted in Bulgaria. (Photo: Interpol website, Images sharpened by AI)


State Capture plus murder in Sofia


Ivan Geshev, ahead of his dismissal as that country’s chief prosecutor, revealed an alleged State Capture-style plot to have him removed from office. 

He accused Kamenov of driving it.

Kamenov had also been wanted by Bulgaria in connection with a murder threat, murder and extortion.

He was accused of being involved in the killing of a former policeman, Lyubomir Ivanov, who was fatally shot in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, in March 2022.

This is where Ignatova crops up.

Some reports, based on documents apparently found in Ivanov’s home following his murder, suggested she had been murdered in November 2018 on a yacht in the Ionian Sea, which is bounded by Italy, Greece and Albania. 

A day after Kamenov was murdered, the Bureau of Investigative Reporting and Data in Bulgaria, a partner in the global Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, said he had been its source for police reports about Ignatova’s apparent murder. 



The bureau also said Kamenov had been “about to say more to US investigators”.

A timeline of killings across countries, and references to Ignatova, therefore, goes like this:

  • November 2018: Claims suggest that Ignatova is murdered at sea;

  • March 2022: Ivanov, the ex-policeman, is murdered in a shooting in Sofia. Documents found in his home apparently suggest that Ignatova had been killed at sea; and

  • May 2023: Kamenov is murdered in Constantia and was apparently a source of information about Ignatova’s claimed murder.


While it is unclear what happened to Ignatova, what is clear is that she effectively disappeared in October 2017.

Her usual online presence suddenly stopped, and she could not be traced.

Despite the stories that she was murdered, there are indicators that some authorities aside from those in Germany are of the opinion, or are creating the impression, that they suspect she is alive.

$5-million reward


In 2022, five years after Ignatova was last publicly heard from and four years after her claimed murder, she became one of the top 10 suspects wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

In June this year, the US Department of State announced a reward of up to $5-million for information leading to her arrest or conviction.

The announcement summed up how Ignatova went from the founder of a crypto firm to a most-wanted global criminal suspect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIcV8iodbZ0

It said that in about 2014 OneCoin was founded in Bulgaria but that it allegedly “defrauded investors from across the world out of billions of dollars”.

The announcement said: “By 2017, OneCoin is believed to have defrauded victims of more than $4-billion.

“On October 12, 2017, Ignatova was indicted in the US… and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.  

“Two weeks after the indictment Ignatova travelled from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Athens, Greece, to evade arrest and has been a fugitive since that time.”

Konstantin Ignatov, the brother of FBI-wanted Ruja Ignatova, was arrested in the US in 2019. Before that, based on his Instagram account, he visited various places including Cape Town. (Photo: Instagram)



Konstantin Ignatov, the brother of FBI-wanted Ruja Ignatova. (Photo: Instagram)



Ignatov Konstantin Ignatov. (Photo: Instagram)


Cape Town visit


After Ignatova effectively disappeared, her younger brother, Konstantin Ignatov, took over heading OneCoin.

Daily Maverick has reported before on how several photographs Ignatov posted to his Instagram account about six years ago – around 2018 – show that he had visited Cape Town.

In 2019, Ignatov was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport, and was later convicted in the US for his role in OneCoin.

https://youtu.be/QzW9U5syy1Q?feature=shared

Ignatov was released from a US jail in March this year.

Daily Maverick previously reported that when Ignatov was arrested there in 2019, he had been with Duncan Arthur, who has citizenship in Ireland and South Africa.

Read more: Interpol on the hunt for Bulgarian criminal suspects ‘linked’ to SA and web of global organised crime

According to a February 2023 document addressed to Bulgaria’s Department of Justice, Arthur had suggested that claims that Ignatova had been killed at sea in 2018 were false because her brother had been keeping in contact with her.

“I know that Konstantin was in regular and direct phone contact with Ruja as late as March 2019, long after the alleged murder plot,” Arthur claimed in the document.

If true, it would mean that Ignatov may have been in contact with his sister while he was in South Africa around 2018, the year some claims suggest she was murdered.

On 14 November 2024, Daily Maverick contacted Ignatov via Instagram messenger to ask if he would respond to questions, but it appeared he then blocked this journalist on the platform because his profile could no longer be accessed. DM

Caryn Dolley’s explosive new book, Man Alone: Mandela’s Top Cop – Exposing South Africa’s Ceaseless Sabotage, is now available in bookstores and at the Daily Maverick Shop.

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