Cosmopolitan preview the new BBC investigative podcast on Dr. Ruja Ignatova, the self proclaimed Oxford educated "cryptoqueen", the woman alleged to be behind what could be the largest cryptocurrency scam of all time.
In 2014 a woman named Ruja Ignatova founded a company called OneCoin and opened an office in Slaveykov Central Capital Square, Bulgaria. Riding on the wave of the cryptocurrency movement, OneCoin claimed to be a digital currency "just like the serial number on a paper bill, each digital coin is unique. Unlike money issued by governments, there is a finite number of OneCoins, ensuring they cannot be affected by inflation and are impossible to counterfeit." The vision declared on the website is "to improve the lives of all people worldwide". By 2016 the company claimed to have more than 3.5million users worldwide, plus hundreds of thousands of investors who were promised huge returns. The BBC reports that investors from the UK alone put at least £26m into the scam over one six-month window in 2016.