You have heard of the various cryptocurrency scams that exist. These are tactics used by people to steal your money. It is similar to robbery, except they lure you into giving them your money willingly, or they get the money without you noticing. The most talked-about crypto scums include;
- Phishing schemes
- Crypto mugging
Recently it has been noted that people develop cryptocurrency projects as a Ponzi scheme. This has stained cryptocurrency’s name in an already volatile market. It is hurting the market’s perception. During the current crash, this is something that any stakeholder in the market doesn’t want to hear. Letting others know and avoid being a victim in a similar situation is important. Since the 30th of June, the self-proclaimed crypto queen Ruja Ignatova has been on the Federal Bureau of Investigation list as a most wanted criminal. “The blacklist” is a good resource material for anyone who wants to know what it most wanted looks like.
Ruja Ignatova
Ruja Ignatova is currently 42 years old, born in Bulgaria. She defrauded her victims of over $4 billion. She is now the 11th woman on the FBI’s most-wanted list in the last 72 years since the organization started. For her scheme to be successful, she started a cryptocurrency project in 2014. She named her company OneCoin. The company offered investors the opportunity to invest, trade, and hold a Bitcoin Killer cryptocurrency. This is a huge claim, considering how big bitcoin is in the market.
The false representation helped Ruja Ignatova to convince thousands of investors to invest in her project. This claim and the fact that she had a law degree from Oxford made many investors trust her. The company gained over 3 million investors from over one hundred countries from the records collected. From all these investors, the company was able to generate slightly over $4 billion in investment.
The total profits made from the operation were slightly over $2.7 billion. Ruja did this by promising the investors huge returns from their investments. She moved from the last quarter of 2014 to the third quarter of 2016. This was when the crypto market was gaining traction among people and investors worldwide. The fact that makes this a Ponzi scheme is that she offered the investors commissions whenever they sold their coins to others.
