Documents seen by the Bureau for Investigative Reporting and Data (BIRD) include an agency report that Ruja Ignatova, one of the two co-founders of the multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency scam OneCoin, died in November 2018 on a yacht in Greece. Ignatova’s body was allegedly dismembered and thrown into the Ionian Sea.
According to the report, the said murder was allegedly carried out at the behest of Christoforos “Taki” Amanatidis, a notorious drug lord. Georgi Georgiev Vasilev, a Bulgarian citizen and brother-in-law of Amanatidis, allegedly confessed to the murder while drunk.
A According to BIRD the documents supporting the claims are part of materials found in the home of Ljubomir Ivanov, a former senior Bulgarian police officer who was murdered last March. The investigative journalism organization linked the reports related to the case to the disciplinary cases of the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior.
“The prosecutor’s office is aware of the documents, but is not looking at them in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Act, and for the time being is not investigating the data related to the murder of Ruja Ignatova either…” explained BIRD.
Commenting on the exposé translated from Bulgarian, Crypto Xpose, a Twitter account that has been quietly working on the investigation of the OneCoin affair, noted that although the alleged murder “possible, no real evidence” that it actually happened.
“I wouldn’t take this information for granted that Ruja was killed in November 2018. Of course it is possible, but there is no real evidence for it. The FBI doesn’t usually put dead people on their 10 most wanted list. Also, Bulgaria is Bulgaria…” said the tweet.
Ignatova’s name also came up in a London property purchase case
The new assumptions came to light when the news broke that Ignatova, who has been on the run since 2017, bought a property in Kensington, London. Ignatova is reported to have bought the apartment through a front company and was listed as the beneficiary under UK rules. However, the BBC report traced the development back to prosecutors in the German city of Bielefeld.
The property was put up for auction by estate agent Knight Frank, originally for £12.5m, but later reduced to £11m. However, following the media reported on Ignatova’s connection to the house, the property was removed from the list.
