OneCoin scam: Was the cryptocurrency queen murdered by her own bodyguard?

The leader of OneCoin may have been dead for years. Evidence of the cryptocurrency queen's bloody end is piling up. What's behind it?

Ruja Ignatova, known as the Crypto Queen, is the only woman on the FBI's list of the 10 most wanted criminals. After the OneCoin scandal, one of the largest crypto scandals in history, came to light, she disappeared without a trace in November 2017.

Now there are growing indications that the 40-year-old Bulgarian woman may have been killed.

According to an insider, the OneCoin mastermind paid him about $100,000 a month for its security. However, the media attention may have become too much for the mysterious man from the underworld.

"Certain people had to be removed because they knew too much. It was a kind of public execution that was more like a declaration. Be careful who you deal with," one Bulgarian told investigative journalist to the BBC.

Apparently, the drug trafficker no longer wanted to be associated with the OneCoin scam. In the report from a police informant states that Ruya Ignatova was dismembered after her murder and that her individual parts were discarded in the Mediterranean Sea.

In Bulgaria, "Taki," as the drug lord is known, has a status similar to El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. He is suspected of being the head of a Bulgarian mafia organization. However, he and his accomplices have never been proven to have committed any crime.

So far, it's all conjecture. The Crypto-Queen could also still be alive. It is speculated that she and Taki live in Dubai. She is said to own more than 230,000 Bitcoin as a result of the OneCoin scam.

OneCoin was a Ponzi scam based in Bulgaria that was active between 2014 and 2018. The scammers promised huge profits, guaranteed returns and marketed their crypto project as a "Bitcoin killer."