Fugitive.The.Mystery.of.the.Crypto.Queen.S01E03

  • 2 months ago
Fugitive.The.Mystery.of.the.Crypto.Queen.S01E03
Transcript
00:00It's hard to disappear completely.
00:06We don't know where Ruzsa is.
00:10A source told me that Ruzsa might be hiding in the mountain.
00:16She stole a lot of money, so stay in some bunker.
00:22It doesn't make sense.
00:24Maybe we'll never know where Ruzsa is.
00:29I guess it's one of those stories that starts with a mystery and ends with a mystery.
00:44Our creator, our founder, Dr. Ruzsa.
00:58I've been called a lot of things.
01:01And probably the best thing that the press called me was the Bitcoin killer.
01:07She's got this magnetism about her that just draws people in.
01:10How do you find out?
01:11One coin.
01:12One coin.
01:13One coin.
01:14One coin.
01:15Everybody was buying one coin.
01:16A lot of people made money.
01:17They made millions.
01:18Together for more.
01:19Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
01:27One of the founders behind OneCoin's pyramid scheme pled guilty to federal U.S. charges.
01:33Two of them swung Konstantin around and cut him.
01:37Everything was falling apart for them, but Ruzsa was just nowhere to be found.
01:42She literally vanished off the face of the earth.
01:46Where the hell is Ruzsa and the billions of dollars?
01:50People want to know what's happened to her, and everybody has got a theory.
01:55In the middle of the night, I got a text, home, safe.
01:59That was it.
02:00Nothing.
02:01Ever again.
02:02She should be trialed, judged, and not killed.
02:04She's not dead.
02:05I absolutely refuse to believe it.
02:09The FBI does not put dead people on their 10 most wanted list.
02:13They don't chase ghosts.
02:15I've been asked to stay away.
02:17When you realize the people who are involved, I don't want to end up in the desert, deported
02:22or disappeared.
02:38Dr. Ruha Ignatyeva made billions of pounds selling a fake cryptocurrency called OneCoin.
02:45Which the FBI calls an old school pyramid scheme on a new school platform.
02:51It was being promised huge profits if they invested in an apparently new cryptocurrency
02:56and then talked their friends and family into doing the same.
02:59She made people believe they could be rich just like her.
03:03And then, one day in 2017, she suddenly disappeared.
03:07None of her victims, located all around the world, have received any of their money back.
03:14All over the news, they said, OK, that's it.
03:18And at that moment, I'm like, this is a scam.
03:28And my heart dropped, but I was, I was upset.
03:33We lost a lot of money.
03:35I had recommended to my mom that, hey, let's put some money into this.
03:40I feel very guilty and I need to pay this back.
03:48That, you know what, your money's gone.
03:52It was so scaring and frustrating at the same time.
03:57I was battling with anger and what I've done and how I became such a fool in this, you
04:04know, nonsense scheme.
04:05And what I was going to do to tell my family, because sooner or later they will find out.
04:15I'm Dr. Jonathan Levy, attorney.
04:18I've been working with cryptocurrency victims since 2017.
04:24As I started looking into OneCoin more, I was amazed because it was the largest cryptocurrency
04:30criminal scam that had occurred to date.
04:34It may well still be.
04:38The best guess is that four billion euros at a minimum were lost.
04:42I think based on the fact there were one and a quarter million victims, though, that the
04:47figure is probably much larger.
04:50Esther, I want to ask you one thing, because we are working on the victim impact statement.
04:56Can you review a little bit with me about, you know, the personal toll it's taken on
05:00your life?
05:01I know, I know you suffered terribly.
05:02It was devastating to me.
05:05It was a disaster when I found out that I lost everything and I'm still struggling.
05:11For my clients, the only thing we want to achieve is to try to pay them back a little
05:16bit to get them whole.
05:17In the case of OneCoin, the frustrating thing is that there's billions of assets out there
05:23that have been untapped.
05:25And the problem is the person who really knows where all those assets are is Ruja.
05:30That's the mystery.
05:31Good morning, everyone.
05:33We're here today to discuss that she's been added to our 10 most wanted fugitives list.
05:40She's been charged for allegedly defrauding investors of billions of dollars.
05:45We know she has ties to Bulgaria, Germany, Russia, Greece, and may have even traveled
05:51to the United Arab Emirates.
05:53We're offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to her arrest.
05:59What we know is that she's got a lot of money, and we know that she hit the road pretty quick.
06:04Beyond that, everything else is rumor.
06:06So we're willing to take any information the public is willing to share.
06:11It felt like there was a huge energy behind all of this.
06:17My name's Georgia Catt, and I'm the creator and producer of The Missing Crypto Queen.
06:24There were a lot of people invested in this story and interested in this story for different
06:30reasons, because I think people felt that ultimately information is going to come to
06:34light with all these people now there that will help flush out the person that they most
06:41wanted to see brought to justice.
06:44And so the hunt for Ruja Ignatova and trying to understand her was the kind of driving
06:51force for the series.
06:54The last known movement that we have for Ruja Ignatova is that on the 25th of October 2017,
07:02she boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia in Bulgaria to Athens, Greece.
07:08And after that, there are a lot of theories, but that's the last known.
07:19So who is this Gilbert Armenta, and what do we know about him, and how did he get involved
07:25with Ruja?
07:27He was a banker in Florida.
07:30He owned a bank in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia as well.
07:35As far as I remember, she transferred funds to this Georgian bank after their first meeting.
07:45He was someone who handled funds for her in the hundreds and hundreds of millions, if
07:49not close to maybe a billion or something that was actually somewhat under Gilbert's
07:55control.
07:59With her financial wealth growing, Gilbert's lifestyle also grew.
08:06That included him having a private jet.
08:10He used this plane as if it was just hopping in the car.
08:13He would fly to Europe, then to Asia, back to Europe, like even the richest people don't.
08:19I mean, you have to be super wealthy to actually fly then long distance around the world.
08:26She flew in this plane as if money and funds were no limit.
08:31He told her that this comes from his investments.
08:36I didn't realize at the beginning that there was more than just a business relationship.
08:42He is, I believe, one of the main issues of why all of this went downhill and collapsed.
08:56Gilbert's omenter, you know, and I only found out this later, was apparently her boyfriend.
09:08We were told she was married, but she fell head over heels in love with Gilbert.
09:14He said he was going to leave his wife.
09:17Then she found out that him and his wife were actually laughing about how much money they
09:21were getting off her and what they could get away with getting off her.
09:27He took large parts of these funds for his own personal lifestyle.
09:36Ruzsa recorded all her telephone conversations with Gilbert because she knew that Gilbert
09:40was playing false in this relationship.
09:45She at some stage lost the plot and was extremely angry with him and sort of indicated that
09:48she knew everything and that she knew what he was doing.
10:19I think he was a classic, I don't even know the word in English, a hochstapler.
10:30And so I looked into him.
10:31I want to know who he is, where he comes from, what he did, what he does.
10:36And he was clearly, I mean, this was a crook.
10:38The guy was involved in fraudulent businesses and fraudulent investments.
10:43He was bad news.
10:47The principal interest for her should have been what has happened to her money, you know,
10:51because she didn't really know.
10:53It looks to me like U.S. law enforcement sort of stumbled into the one coin thing by accident
11:00and probably triggered by Gilbert Armenta's money laundering.
11:05There were funds constantly moving.
11:08He moved money through his bank in Georgia.
11:10He moved money through accounts in Florida.
11:13He set up a network of funds for her.
11:17And she's managed to successfully move over $350 million.
11:22If you want to avoid U.S. jurisdiction, you surely don't want to use money launderers
11:26in the U.S.
11:27But unfortunately for Ruzsa, that's what she did.
11:31At some point, the U.S. government got wind of it and they put the pinch on Gilbert Armenta.
11:38What did Armenta do?
11:40He does what most defendants do when they're caught up in the federal system in the U.S.
11:45They snitch.
11:58As part of being a cooperative witness, you need to set people up.
12:02And that's what he tried to do.
12:06However, he failed in the case of Ruzsa because they did not get her.
12:21Well, we don't know all the details, of course, but Frank Schneider was instrumental in finding
12:27out what was going on.
12:28She had Schneider spy on him, and ultimately Schneider was able to ferret out the truth
12:33that Gilbert was working with the federal government.
12:37First of all, I have to say that I never bugged anything.
12:40That doesn't mean things weren't bugged, but Ruzsa with her Bulgarian connections was able
12:46to do all sorts of things.
12:49It was clear that at some stage, Gilbert was forced to cooperate under some kind of plea
12:55agreement.
12:57And so suddenly, he suggested that he had found some potential buyer for her company
13:04and this person would want to meet her in Costa Rica.
13:07The aim was to have Ruzsa under U.S. jurisdiction, and she knew exactly what that was for.
13:16She knew that this guy was actively working against her in order to betray her.
13:27I never thought that you're like a spineless asshole, are you?
13:30Well, the big issue right now is...
13:33No, no, no need, no need.
13:35I don't want to hear it because it's actually very clear.
13:38It's like shit, like everywhere, just dirt.
13:42It's disgusting, actually.
13:46I think when Ruzsa found out that federal authorities were really after her, that there
13:50were investigations, possibly an indictment, she felt she was going to be arrested, I think,
13:57and she felt it was time to disappear.
14:08I think the most part we learned about her private life is actually after she disappeared.
14:17We learned more about who she was from her brother's testimony, from court documents,
14:24and et cetera, rather than from herself when she was quite a public figure in a way.
14:32I think she was, in a way, trapped into OneCoin.
14:35She couldn't get out.
14:37It became too big, so money was pouring in hugely.
14:42A lot of people were making a lot of money out of OneCoin, obviously.
14:48At a certain point, OneCoin became big.
14:51It became interesting for the underground world to be of mutual assistance.
14:57You're taking the risk already of laundering money.
15:00Why don't you launder alongside the OneCoin victim's money some other money?
15:06The FBI told us this in one of our podcast interviews, that they now are pretty sure
15:11that there are organized crime links to Ruja and to OneCoin.
15:18There are known organized crime groups that she has been affiliated with.
15:21Without getting into specifics on those, we do believe that they are involved in part
15:26of the scheme, and especially in some protection of her and some of the other co-conspirators.
15:32I think the connections to her famous Bulgarian drug trafficking, I don't know how to put
15:42it, drug lord, I don't know, are pretty obvious and to some extent documented.
16:01Five billion of euro.
16:31You have to be f***ing careful.
16:51What these Russian guys can do, you cannot imagine.
16:54If they can do it, everybody can do it.
16:56Do not use emails.
16:58Do not, like just face to face or encrypted phones.
17:01Nothing else is safe.
17:02Just believe me, please.
17:04Like I can get everything I want within 24 hours.
17:07And if I can, they can too.
17:10I'm really worried.
17:11You have to be careful with communication.
17:13Everybody has to be careful with communication, like extremely.
17:16I think she didn't quite realize how unsafe she was in Bulgaria.
17:22If she wanted to disappear, I would have assumed that I would have been privy to that information.
17:29But I wasn't.
17:30There was no plan of disappearing.
17:33There was a one-year-old daughter who was everything for her.
17:37It made no sense.
17:38I mean, she was a young girl.
17:40She had no idea what was going on.
17:42How did you find out that she said she's going to leave Bulgaria?
17:45Was there a tip off?
17:47She, in fact, provided me with the information of the sort of Europol interest and the Europol
17:52working groups against her.
17:54Well, she said that she was told by her Bulgarian networks that she had to leave because there
18:02was a planned search of the premises of her house.
18:05And she was told that she was going to leave.
18:07She had to leave because there was a planned search of the premises of her house and the
18:12offices and so on under this German initiative.
18:17And that she was told that the Bulgarians have to execute this.
18:21And they said that they wanted her that day not to be in the country.
18:27They wanted to be able to tell the Germans, we don't know where she is.
18:30She has left the country.
18:32I said, who cares when they come and search your houses?
18:35What's the problem?
18:37What is the big deal?
18:39My advice was to get your best possible legal defense up and go and handle it.
18:45She had no arguments.
18:46She got angry.
18:47She said, Frank, stop it.
18:48I have to do it.
18:49I won't tell you why.
18:51I've been told to do it.
18:53And I have to do what these people tell me to do.
19:02On the 25th of October, 2017, she decided to fly to Athens.
19:10She called me from the airport.
19:15And she said, everything's fine.
19:16I'm here.
19:18The only strange thing, my bodyguard told me that he has to go home.
19:22And I said, why would he go home?
19:26Well, he said his boss told him to go home.
19:29But I said, you're the boss.
19:32She sort of laughed.
19:33And she said, well, that's what I thought.
19:35But obviously, he has another boss.
19:37And that boss is more important.
19:39So he left her alone.
19:42He gave her instructions to fly to Thessaloniki in the afternoon.
19:46And he said, other people will wait for you.
19:48And you'll be told what to do next.
19:53When she got to Thessaloniki, there was nobody there.
19:56And apparently, she got a text saying that to hang on,
20:00people would be coming.
20:01And they would be looking after her.
20:06A few hours later, she called me.
20:09She was tired.
20:10She was in a car.
20:11And she said, I'm on my way back to Bulgaria.
20:15And she told me she was about two hours from Sofia.
20:19In the middle of the night, I got a text.
20:22Home safe in English.
20:26And we spoke German.
20:26We texted in German.
20:28We always wrote German.
20:30But I remember thinking that that text was odd for some reason.
20:36And that was the last thing I ever heard from her.
20:39That was it.
20:40Nothing ever again.
20:43Did she disappear voluntarily?
20:46You know, it's just an assumption.
20:58So this is Ruzha's villa in Sosupo.
21:04Totally uninhabited.
21:08It's still an open story after all.
21:10It's still an open story.
21:11It's still an open story.
21:12It's still an open story.
21:14It's still an open story afterwards.
21:18We don't have a definitive ending.
21:20We don't know where Ruzha is.
21:24But for me, this villa is a sign that she wasn't planning
21:28escaping and vanishing altogether.
21:32Otherwise, she would have tried to sell this place.
21:37I do have some quite dark thoughts and worrying thoughts
21:42about her disappearance.
21:45She may have caused a lot of people a lot of damage.
21:49That's true.
21:51But for that, she should be trialed and judged and not killed.
21:58A report in Bulgarian media dug out some documents pointing
22:05that she might be murdered on a yacht somewhere
22:09in the Mediterranean and thrown out into the sea.
22:16There could be some motives for this to happen.
22:21I think Ruzha was so scared that she
22:24I think Ruzha was also kind of beneficial for organized crime.
22:32When she launders her money, she can
22:34launder some others' money as well.
22:38And she knew a lot of things about the dealings of these people.
22:41And she could eventually, if she was arrested,
22:45maybe she could testify against somebody in that area.
22:50There is a theory that Ruzha is dead and that she's been murdered.
22:55For me, that's not an unlikely theory.
22:59Was Ruzha working for the mafia?
23:03Was she the mafia?
23:04Was she working for politicians or had she bought the politicians?
23:08That's the question.
23:09Nobody knows the answer to that because Bulgaria, unfortunately, is very opaque.
23:14Whistleblowers don't last very long in Bulgaria.
23:16They end up dead.
23:20We know very little about Ruzha's actual disappearance.
23:22And most of what we do know comes from Frank Schneider,
23:25who is probably the person who arranged the disappearance
23:28and may be selectively telling us about it.
23:31He may be providing us false information.
23:33The only thing we know for sure is she boarded a plane for Athens, Greece from Sofia
23:38and from that point, disappeared.
23:50She's not dead.
23:52I was in the room when Konstantin used to answer his phone after she disappeared.
23:57And he used to come back completely white and say, I just spoke to Ruzha.
24:02He used to tell me, I have to go and see you next week.
24:07Now, it often happened that I carried Konstantin's laptop in my bag.
24:12And I'd go to the bathroom and I'd look at the phone.
24:14And I'd say, I just spoke to Ruzha.
24:15And he'd say, I just spoke to Ruzha.
24:17I carried Konstantin's laptop in my bag.
24:20There were documents on his computer that were signed after she disappeared.
24:24She's not dead.
24:27I absolutely refuse to believe it.
24:45Okay, welcome to Bulgaria.
24:46Those two windows on the first floor next to the camera
24:51were where Raven-R was.
24:55Nobody was allowed to disclose that there was a London office.
24:58It was a secret.
25:01The Raven-R office handled investments for Ruzsa only,
25:06was set up by a lady connected to a Russian oligarch
25:09in England, had a compliance officer, Duncan Arthur,
25:13who ended up being very close to Ruzsa's successor,
25:16Konstantin Ignatov.
25:18It had a number of mysterious people whose functions
25:21were unknown, bankers, a couple Russians.
25:25And the purpose of that was solely to launder money for her,
25:30to solely feather the nest, so to speak,
25:33for her and her family to move to London.
25:37She bought a penthouse because it's
25:39situated almost exactly between Buckingham
25:42and Kensington Palaces.
25:45It's over the top.
25:46It's opulent.
25:47She definitely wanted that London lifestyle.
25:51It never happened.
25:53We now know that she heard about the FBI investigation.
25:56She literally vanished off the face of the Earth.
26:00An intelligence person like Frank Schneider
26:02would know how to make this happen.
26:05All I ever spoke to him about was
26:07what to do with the London assets
26:10after Ruzsa had disappeared.
26:12And he told me to get rid of them or to move them,
26:16which I did.
26:17There had to be a plan.
26:19This was carefully, carefully orchestrated.
26:24From all the documents we've seen, from all the emails,
26:29from all the videos, from all the calls,
26:31both private and public, she is very, very smart.
26:36And she's ruthless.
26:38And she's ambitious.
26:39I don't think she went into this not knowing anything, right?
26:43I think she had some sort of plan.
26:55The penthouse was owned on paper by a trust.
26:59If something is owned by a trust,
27:01you have to disclose the beneficial owner.
27:03The lawyers based in Guernsey, they
27:06would have had to have known that the beneficial owner was
27:08Ruzsa, which means that she's either alive
27:13or they're taking a chance.
27:16So who made that decision in order to sell the thing?
27:21And what did the attorneys know?
27:24The FBI does not put dead people on their 10 most wanted list.
27:29They don't chase ghosts.
27:32One method of trying to find Ruzsa, and of course,
27:34unraveling what she did, is follow the money.
27:38Follow the trail.
27:40There was property.
27:41There were yachts.
27:43There were boats.
27:44There were boats.
27:45There were yachts.
27:46There were boats.
27:47There were yachts.
27:48There were boats.
27:49There were yachts.
27:50There were yachts.
27:52There were yachts.
27:53There were rental properties.
27:56There's diamonds.
27:57There's gold.
27:58She was involved with a group that
28:00invested in thoroughbred horses.
28:02There were businesses she invested in.
28:04So it was a diversification all over the place,
28:08which would make it very, very difficult
28:11for law enforcement to trace.
28:13It would simply take an army of police
28:15to track her down that way.
28:16After the FBI 10 most wanted list came out,
28:19the whistleblower contacted me.
28:21They said, you know, Dr. Levy, we
28:23know you're helping the one coin victims.
28:26We have a real story here.
28:29Ruzsa has enough to pay back every single victim
28:34plus interest.
28:37And not only are we telling you about this,
28:40we're going to give you about 1,000 documents
28:42which is a huge holding at one time worth $10 or $11 billion.
28:46And the whistleblower stated that these 230,000 bitcoins
28:51were given to Ruzsa by Sheikh Al-Qasimi of the royal family
28:55of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
28:59The Al-Qasimi family itself is very powerful.
29:02They're a very powerful group.
29:04They're a very powerful group.
29:05They're a very powerful group.
29:07They're a very powerful group.
29:08They're a very powerful group.
29:09They're a very powerful group.
29:10It's very powerful, probably second only to the Maktoum
29:14family that runs Dubai.
29:17So the question here is, is it just a made up story?
29:22Now, the whistleblower produced a memo
29:24from the Kuwaiti government alerting
29:27the public prosecutor of Dubai that Ruzsa was involved
29:30in terrorist financing.
29:33Ruzsa's bank accounts became blocked.
29:35She went to the Sheikh.
29:36Sheikh said, you give me control of one coin in Dubai
29:39and the bank accounts, I'll trade you
29:41these wonderful bitcoins.
29:43So Ruzsa made the deal.
29:46Of course, the ironic thing is that she said one coin
29:48is the bitcoin killer.
29:50And here she emerges as the largest bitcoin
29:53holder in the world.
29:54Now, how did the Sheikh know to do business with Ruzsa?
29:57Well, he was a personal friend and business partner of her,
30:00one of the first people she made contact with back in 2015
30:05when she opened up operations in Dubai.
30:08The Sheikh sold her a diplomatic passport
30:11from his UN organization that he was running.
30:14He sold her a banking license.
30:16He may have sold her property.
30:18So it was a beneficial relationship.
30:21The Emirate certainly was one of her bases of operation.
30:26People claim that she may be hiding behind a veil in Dubai
30:32or hanging out in one of Sheikh Al-Qasimi's palaces
30:35under guard.
30:37People say maybe she's in prison in Dubai.
30:39Maybe she finally wore out her welcome.
30:43We don't know.
30:44The person who could answer that, of course,
30:46is Sheikh Al-Qasimi probably could shed a lot of light
30:49on the situation.
30:52So there must have initially been
30:53some kind of a lead to Dubai, not only
30:57that she'd been doing business there,
30:59but that actually after the disappearance, she was seen.
31:03So there have been many leads, and some of them
31:05very strong ones.
31:06But because of various reasons, I can't spell them out
31:12where they came from.
31:15Because it's a very touchy issue with Ruja Agnotova,
31:17because of her involvement with people in power
31:21and people who have authority.
31:23So I wouldn't say that she has been protected
31:27by authorities there, because that UAE and Dubai especially
31:31is very, I mean, they have no tolerance
31:34or they have no room for bad criminals.
31:40What I found very strange while investigating Ruja Agnotova
31:44was that I think about two or three years back,
31:47there was a company, so it was like virtual gold
31:49that you pay money.
31:50And they said, OK, we have gold bars for you,
31:52and you can take any time that you want.
31:54So those gold bars didn't exist.
31:56They were just virtual gold bars.
31:59It was quite a big scam.
32:02There were lots of similarities, which were quite eerie.
32:05One of the trade licenses of the company that we found
32:09had similar addresses as one coin.
32:12Then I found a name which was called Ruja Agnotova.
32:16So I reached out to them.
32:18They said, oh, you know, someone hacked into our system
32:21and changed it to Ruja Agnotova.
32:24I mean, how is that even possible?
32:27It is right there in the trade license.
32:29Her name is there.
32:31The names of the people who were behind the scam,
32:34some of them were also on Ruja Agnotova's team.
32:37They also disappeared with lots of money.
32:41Too much of a coincidence there.
32:45I would not say who it was, but I've been asked to stay away.
32:49When you realize the people who are involved,
32:52I said, OK, let's step back.
32:56I don't want to end up in a desert, like, you know,
32:59being deported or disappeared.
33:04I don't think we know the full story.
33:06A lot of the world is pretty closed off to journalists,
33:10to authorities, and she could be somewhere where, you know,
33:16we can't go, which is too dangerous for us to investigate.
33:20You know, I think if she's out there, if she's alive,
33:23she's going to be hiding and doing
33:24what it takes to stay hidden.
33:28So since then, there have been lots and lots of different people
33:30that have told us she's changed her appearance.
33:33If she has done surgery, she could be living in Plainside.
33:37She is known for her glamorous lifestyle,
33:40so it is unthinkable for her to be living alone
33:44and not socialising.
33:46It is something that keeps me awake at night,
33:49thinking, you know, where she could be.
33:50For all you know, she could be sipping, I don't know,
33:53Martini and Burj Khalifa next to... at the next table.
34:07Hi, I'm Dr Ruzha Ignatova.
34:11After a long silence, I can resume my work again.
34:15Finally, we are ready to expand our cryptocurrency
34:18to the whole world.
34:20I'm announcing the launch of the platform again.
34:23We are one team and one family.
34:27That was interesting to see Ruzha there.
34:29I mean, it looks like she's reappeared.
34:31Looks like Ruzha, sounds like Ruzha.
34:34Approximately every two months, there will be a doubling.
34:39And the main thing is not to miss these opportunities.
34:43There was something off about these videos.
34:45This woman, who looked like Ruzha Ignatova,
34:50was talking about how she's still taking OneCoin public.
34:56To this day, I think that it had to have been AI.
35:02According to forensic audio experts,
35:06the audio sounds like it's been manipulated.
35:10The video's been manipulated as well.
35:13Someone put a lot of effort and money into it.
35:15It's not just a dress up with, you know,
35:17someone who sort of looks like Ruzha.
35:21It's quite possible that it was a totally separate
35:24group of scammers trying to capitalize
35:28on the victims of the OneCoin scam
35:30and re-divert the next phase of their investment
35:34into something totally different.
35:36As long as it's profitable,
35:38there'll be someone who wants to try their hand at it.
35:40I don't think that these people have hearts.
35:42They have to know the damage that they do.
35:44Every Ponzi scheme does.
35:48I really hope that victims receive compensation.
35:52I know that after the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme,
35:57that people did get some compensation, I believe,
36:00but it took a long, long time.
36:03And again, that's why I think it's so important that,
36:06you know, we keep this story going and the hunt going,
36:10because, yes, it's finding out what happened to Ruzha Ignatova,
36:14but it's also finding out what happened to the victims.
36:17It's not just finding out what happened to Ruzha Ignatova,
36:20but it's also trying to locate as many assets as possible,
36:24because they are the sorts of things that could work their way back.
36:30My uncle sold his land to join the OneCoin.
36:37That's a big hand machine.
36:38It's a very big hand.
36:41It's a very big hand.
36:42I used to get a lot of food from this,
36:46and it's a casket of food so far.
36:52So that's how OneCoin rate us down.
37:00Yeah, I don't know what you are planning for us.
37:04I don't know.
37:05I also don't know.
37:06You don't know?
37:07No.
37:08OK, let's pray.
37:33I don't know.
37:34I don't know.
37:35I don't know.
37:36I don't know.
37:37I don't know.
37:38I don't know.
37:39I don't know.
37:40I don't know.
37:41I don't know.
37:42I don't know.
37:43I don't know.
37:44I don't know.
37:45I don't know.
37:46I don't know.
37:47I don't know.
37:48I don't know.
37:49I don't know.
37:50I don't know.
37:51I don't know.
37:52I don't know.
37:53I don't know.
37:54I don't know.
37:55I don't know.
37:56I don't know.
37:57I don't know.
37:58I don't know.
37:59I don't know.
38:00I don't know.
38:01I don't know.
38:02I don't know.
38:03I don't know.
38:05Come on.
38:06When you remember the people you introduced to OneCoin, your relative, a person you love
38:14and you wished good for, and then because of him trusting you, he's losing his money.
38:23It's very disturbing.
38:32The money that I invested at one point was £54,200.
38:43I went through a lot of stress, anxiety, heart palpitation.
38:47I was feeling low mood, but it's also I was battling with anger.
38:55I just made a really bad choice and there's nothing I can do except move forward and accept
39:00that it's a poor judgment on my side.
39:14I hope they find her because I would love to see those assets get taken away and money
39:21being seized and being returned to every victim that lost money.
39:26So I'm just hoping that this money one day will be recovered, some of it, at least part
39:33of it.
39:34I'm laughing, but it's not funny, you know, it's really not funny.
39:56The OneCoin offices are still running in the center of Sofia.
40:03It's rebranded a few months ago, it still had the OneCoin logo painted with graffiti,
40:08but they were visible.
40:10I think it's really, really outrageous that this company is still running in the center
40:18of Sofia.
40:21There's still people out there selling OneCoin packages, there's still some of the original
40:27members that are out there promoting, that are getting paychecks from recruiting others
40:33into losing money that they will not possibly ever get back.
40:38This is still taking place.
40:41There are still people scamming people with OneCoin.
40:43What the hell is going on?
40:46Yeah, it sucks.
40:51Everybody's making mistakes, but we're learning from the previous ones not to repeat them.
40:56I'm Ventislav Zlatkov and I'm the CEO of One Ecosystem.
41:00So if you want to distance yourself from the past, why are some of those people who are
41:05deeply associated with it still involved in the company?
41:08Amazing question.
41:09I'll gladly answer to that.
41:12So we decided that we're going to keep those people because they already have an experience
41:19with what happened previously.
41:23They know where are the mistakes and how not to do them again.
41:29We're having a new way of working, a new management.
41:32We're doing this step by step in order to clear the name so we can go further.
41:38Do you think the people who bought these packages were aware of what it is that they were really
41:45doing?
41:46I think that it's prior to my step in as a CEO and I'd rather not discuss it, but who
41:55knows?
41:57They did what they did.
41:59We cannot reverse the time.
42:03We cannot go back.
42:06Even if I say sorry, even if I feel bad, it's not going to change.
42:12Nothing is going to change because this is something that happened in the past.
42:17Ruja is not part of this anymore, correct?
42:23So if she is going to be arrested, that arrest is not going to affect me because I don't
42:34know her, right?
42:42Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world premiere of the book Ruja Ignatova, The Deceiver
42:54and the Slave.
42:55I can say that I miss Ruja, I'd like to see her again, I'd like to drink a bottle of
43:05champagne, I'd like to go out to a coffee shop and all of this to be a dream, a dream
43:12but it didn't happen.
43:13Anyway, she was on summer vacation, I was on winter vacation and we didn't see each other.
43:19I'd really like to see her alive.
43:37This is it.
43:38This is the limit.
43:40It's obviously better than a prison courtyard but it's still a prison.
43:49The basis for my extradition is wire fraud and then money laundering.
43:54In the United States, I face potentially a 40-year prison sentence.
44:01I am absolutely convinced and certain that I am innocent.
44:10This is the gizmo that monitors my whereabouts, so where the fence is basically, where that
44:16thing would signal my absence if I were to go beyond this line, which we shall not try today.
44:31When I have reached the bottom, I have nowhere to go.
44:47We was doing it wrong.
44:48We was doing it the cowboy way because everybody wants to spend a dollar and win a million.
44:52I have nobody to eat, nobody to love, I don't know what to do.
44:57Please, I'm begging, I'm begging, I'm begging.
45:00I have nowhere to turn to.
45:26No one has lost anything here, just the office.
45:35Everything is transparent today.
45:37Ethereum-based blockchain, which is going to be published also quite soon.
45:40You're going to see it and we are here to stay.
45:46Hi guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel again.
45:48My name is Daniel Eilat.
45:50On this channel, I expose...
45:52I started up a YouTube channel to warn other victims, realise that actually OneCoin was a scam.
45:57And also teach them how MLM works and warn them against other MLM businesses.
46:52Thank you for watching.