The FBI recently increased the bounty on Luza Ignatova (44) for alleged cryptocurrency fraud to 5 million dollars as it reorganized its wanted list. It is 50 times more than the bounty (100,000 dollars) when it first put Ignatova on the wanted list in June 2022. It is the highest bounty among female criminals being pursued by the FBI.
Born in Bulgaria in 1980, German national Ignatova is the founder of OneCoin, a multi-level cryptocurrency fraud project. She, along with her partner Carl Sebastian Greenwood, is accused of cheating more than 3.5 million investors and stealing $4 billion from 2014 to 2016.
Ignatova is known to own more than 7 million dollars worth of assets, including luxury penthouses and yachts in London, the U.K., through money earned from fraud. She was indicted in October 2017 and an arrest warrant was issued, but she immediately fled and remains at large. The last confirmed whereabouts was in Athens, Greece in October 2017.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “We will pay $5 million in bounties to those who provide information on Ignatova’s whereabouts for her arrest. Ignatova holds a German passport and may have changed her appearance through plastic surgery.” “Ignatova is believed to be moving with armed guards or armed colleagues,” he said. “She may have fled to the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Greece and Eastern Europe.”
JULIE KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
