Final final week BIRD, the Bureau for Investigative Reporting and Knowledge, revealed an article suggesting Ruja Ignatova was murdered in 2018.
It’s a effectively researched idea and supported by paperwork linked to regulation enforcement.
Right here’s why I believe it doesn’t maintain up.
Crypto-queen Ruja Ignatova was killed in November 2018 on the order of Christophoros Amanatidis-Taki.
Ruja Ignatova (proper) is founder and former CEO of the infamous OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
Christophoros Amanatidis-Taki, aka Hristoforos Amanatidis, Christoforos Amanatidis-Taki or simply “Taki”, is a needed Bulgarian drug lord.
Taki is one of many largest cocaine traffickers in Bulgarian historical past. He inherited the crime empire of Georgi Iliev, after he was shot useless in 2005.
The closest Bulgarian authorities got here to nabbing Taki (proper), a minimum of publicly, was again in 2012.
Bulgarian authorities tracked Taki right down to Dubai, who naturally declined to extradite him.
Taki is believed to have continued hiding out in Dubai till 2015, when expenses towards him had been ultimately dropped.
Taki remains to be believed to be in Dubai, though his lawyer says he isn’t topic to journey restrictions.
As of December 2022 and amongst different issues, Taki is below investigation for his position in a $50 million heist relationship again to 2002. The cash is believed to be tied to terrorism.
Again house, Taki is nice mates with head of Bulgaria’s federal murder division, Mikhail Naumov.
Naumov is believed to have protected Taki inside Bulgaria through the years.
Taki’s hyperlink to OneCoin and Ruja Ignatova come through his ex-girlfriend and real-estate dealings. Past that, no matter different hyperlinks there are/had been between Ignatova and Taki stay below wraps.
Lyubomir Ivanov, former head of the legal division of Bulgaria’s nationwide police, was shot useless on March twenty fifth, 2022.
Inside paperwork seized from Ivanov’s private secure, Taki’s involvement in Ruja Ignatova’s claimed 2018 demise had been discovered.
The doc in query is a police report, detailing a purportedly drunken account from Georgi Goergiev Vasilev.
Vasilev is a detailed affiliate of Taki’s and, maybe not surprisingly, additionally lives in Dubai. Vasilev is married to the sister of Taki’s spouse, Boryana Shehtova.
As claimed by Vasilev on December twenty seventh, 2019;
Taki ordered the homicide of the cryptoqueen Ruja Ignatova, which occurred in November 2018 on a yacht within the Ionian Sea, greater than a yr after as Ruja was final seen in Athens.
The physique of the murdered girl was lower up and thrown into the water.
The hit was purportedly achieved by Hristo “Koeravi” Hristov, presently imprisoned within the Netherlands on heroin trafficking expenses.
The Bulgarian Public Prosecutors Workplace verified the paperwork. They knowledgeable BIRD nonetheless that they didn’t and usually are not investigating the matter.
The paperwork additionally element quite a few luxurious yacht journeys taken by Mikhail Naumov and his household, all purportedly funded by Taki and his associates. Bulgarian Public Prosecutors didn’t examine these experiences both.
That paperwork are claimed to have been shared with the DOJ sooner or later. What the paperwork had been doing within the private secure of Lyubomir Ivanov stays unclear.
In search of solutions, BIRD put forth the next inquiries to Ivan Demerdzhiev, Bulgaria’s Minister of Inside Affairs;
After the evaluation of this knowledge, was a separate investigation into Ignatova’s homicide opened, and if that’s the case, when did it occur? Has the prosecutor’s workplace been notified?
Has there been an investigation into the weird contacts of Mikhail Naumov with Ivan Petleshkov and different individuals associated to Taki?
They by no means heard something again.
Remark from Boyko Rashkov, former Minister for Inside Affairs, was additionally sought.
On the telephone, Boyko Rashkov didn’t need to touch upon whether or not he was conscious of those inquiries, however emphasised that Mikhail Naumov had very questionable contacts with convicted individuals and was faraway from his submit fairly naturally.
Rashkov additionally commented that after he left the ministry, many controversial appointments happened there.
BIRD’s report claims Rashkov “eliminated” Naumov from his submit. Elsewhere within the article nonetheless it’s steered Naumov remains to be head of Bulgaria’s federal murder division.
A number of makes an attempt had been made to contact Ilyan Bankov, the Public Prosecutor who oversaw 8467/2022, the case quantity comparable to Vasilev’s report.
A number of messages had been left at Bankov’s workplace, none of which he replied to.
It was solely after BIRD revealed its article that the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace, on behalf of Bankov, replied;
In connection along with your letter, with which you elevate questions relating to pre-trial proceedings below pr. pr. 8467/2022 in keeping with the stock of the Sofia Metropolis Prosecutor’s Workplace, we offer you the next data.
In the midst of the investigation of the stated file, sheets of A4 format paper with printed textual content had been connected to the case.
They don’t represent a doc, insofar as there isn’t any details about their creator, they don’t bear a signature and don’t signify a particular written assertion of will of a particular pure particular person.
On this regard, they aren’t topic to verification by the strategies of proof offered for within the Legal Process Code (CPC), particularly the appointment of a graphic knowledgeable, whose conclusion will set up who wrote the textual content and who signed it.
Additionally, the cited sheets of paper had been seized from a spot utilized by an individual who had died, and accordingly the circumstances offered in them can’t be verified even by questioning a witness.
As a consequence of these concerns, the supervising prosecutor got here to the conclusion that the conditions of Artwork. 216 of the Code of Legal Process for the separation of the case, since for the time being no proof has been collected of a potential homicide – a criminal offense below Artwork. 115 of the Legal Code and/or probably a criminal offense dedicated on obligation.
Investigation is a dynamic course of. In response to the talked about pre-trial proceedings, new actions within the investigation are pending. The procedural act of dividing the case will probably be carried out if proof is collected of probably dedicated different crimes.
BIRD notes that, outdoors of their very own analysis and sources, case 8467/2022 is sealed off from public entry.
BIRD’s article, researched and reported on by Dimitar Stoyanov and Atanas Tchobanov, is effectively researched and definitely plausible.
The issue from my finish is there’s quite a lot of context and data lacking.
Why was Georgi Vasilev drunk when he made the report?
What was making the report?
Who killed the investigation into Vasilev’s report?
Why had been copies of the report in Lyubomir Ivanov’s private secure?
Certainly ties to a girl on the FBI’s high 10 most needed checklist warrants some Sheik’s nuts in a vice? Or is the UAE actually that untouchable?
Bulgaria has lengthy held the title of the EU’s most corrupt member. For that purpose alone I used to be initially hesitant to place something collectively on BIRD’s article.
To not take something away from Stoyanov’s and Tchobanov’s work, however it’s completely potential it is a planted story to sow doubt and confusion into OneCoin legal proceedings.
Nonetheless, BIRD’s article has taken off in mainstream media and following crypto spam blogs.
Personally I nonetheless suppose Ignatova is hiding out in Dubai, elsewhere within the UAE or Russia (more and more unlikely given the state of affairs in Ukraine).
The “travelling round in a yacht” idea can be there, however I’m not bought on the logistics required to maintain that life-style going (and to what finish?).
The “to what finish?” query does carry us again to Taki ordering Ignatova useless. Whereas she related to organized crime, Ruja Ignatova herself wasn’t of organized crime.
She was a comfort and, to these she labored with, entry to terribly giant quantities of money.
Whereas Taki and his associates can bunker down in Dubai and proceed their legal exploits, Ignatova’s legal profession (ignoring some minor expenses in Germany), started and ended with OneCoin.
If caught, Ignatova faces the remainder of her life in jail – and there’s nearly no probability she walks. However any cooperation settlement she may attain with the DOJ, resulting in who is aware of what about who is aware of who being uncovered.
So why preserve her round?
None of this warmth goes anyplace. Ignatova is gigantic legal responsibility for the larger organized criminals she associates with.
However then there’s additionally the opposite aspect of the coin.
In a assertion to Martin Himmelheber from NRWZ, Duncan Arthur (proper), who up till his arrest, travelled with Ruja’s brother Konstantin Ignatov, claims;
I do know that Ruja Ignatova was nonetheless alive in March 2019, lengthy after the alleged homicide in November 2018.
I do know that Konstantin was in common and direct telephone contact with Ruja as late as March 2019 lengthy after the alleged homicide plot.
In a further assertion to BehindMLM, Arthur claims;
Ok was talking to Ruja proper up till his arrest. He bitched about her, at all times used the current tense when talking about her and bought upset when he bought sure telephone calls.
Plus they discovered 4 numbers for her on his telephone, there have been present docs together with her signature on on his laptop computer, and many others.
There’s additionally the query of, if not Ruja Ignatova, then who’re Ignatova’s UK legal professionals representing with respect to her £13.5 million penthouse?
If Ruja Ignatova is actually useless by the hands of Christophoros Amanatidis-Taki, maybe that’s the explanation Konstantin’s plea deal included entry into the US’ Witness Safety Program.
Ruja Ignatova may very effectively be useless – however personally I don’t suppose she was murdered in 2018.