WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.600 OK, let's unpack this. We have covered a lot 00:00:02.600 --> 00:00:04.480 of ground on this show before. We've looked at 00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:07.360 corporate collapses. We've looked at the psychology 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:09.699 of cults. And we've certainly dabbled in the 00:00:09.699 --> 00:00:12.580 world of high stakes crime. We have. But the 00:00:12.580 --> 00:00:16.160 stack of sources we are working with today, it 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:18.620 feels different. It feels like we are reading 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:21.820 the rough draft of a John Le Carre novel that 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:24.719 was updated for the digital age and then, you 00:00:24.719 --> 00:00:28.109 know. rejected by Hollywood for being just a 00:00:28.109 --> 00:00:30.510 little too implausible. It does strain credulity, 00:00:30.589 --> 00:00:32.789 doesn't it? I mean, if you pitched this as fiction, 00:00:33.009 --> 00:00:35.570 a story involving a multibillion dollar fake 00:00:35.570 --> 00:00:39.350 cryptocurrency, a glamorous Oxford educated genius, 00:00:39.570 --> 00:00:42.570 a disappearing act involving a budget airline 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:45.810 and a potential grisly execution by a Bulgarian 00:00:45.810 --> 00:00:47.509 drug lord. Right. You would be laughed out of 00:00:47.509 --> 00:00:49.070 the room. But every single piece of paper in 00:00:49.070 --> 00:00:50.810 front of us says this is the reality. We are 00:00:50.810 --> 00:00:53.509 talking, of course, about Ruhegntova to the tabloids 00:00:53.509 --> 00:00:55.990 and the victims. She is. the crypto queen to 00:00:55.990 --> 00:00:59.609 the fbi she is one of the 10 most wanted fugitives 00:00:59.609 --> 00:01:01.810 on the planet and that is where i want to start 00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:03.530 because that list isn't something you get on 00:01:03.530 --> 00:01:07.129 for you know parking violations it is a reserved 00:01:07.129 --> 00:01:10.030 seating area for the worst of the worst we are 00:01:10.030 --> 00:01:13.670 talking about cartel leaders terrorists people 00:01:13.670 --> 00:01:16.549 who have committed heinous violent crimes exactly 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:20.840 For a white -collar criminal, a fraudster, to 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:24.159 make that list is incredibly rare. And for a 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:26.400 woman to make that list is even rarer. I believe 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:28.519 she's one of the only women to ever be placed 00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:31.500 on it since its inception in 1950. And the Bureau 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:33.900 recently decided to turn up the heat significantly. 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:37.219 For the longest time, the reward was a standard, 00:01:37.379 --> 00:01:40.760 albeit hefty, $100 ,000. Yeah, then it went up 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:42.959 a bit. Then it went to a quarter million. But 00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:46.719 as of June 2024, the reward for information leading 00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:49.719 to the arrest of Ruscha Ignatova is $5 million. 00:01:50.219 --> 00:01:52.920 That number tells us a story in itself. I mean, 00:01:52.939 --> 00:01:55.340 wow. You don't put a $5 million bounty on someone 00:01:55.340 --> 00:01:57.299 unless you're desperate to close the case. Or 00:01:57.299 --> 00:01:58.920 unless you believe that the network protecting 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:01.540 them is so sophisticated that only a life -changing 00:02:01.540 --> 00:02:04.060 amount of money will crack it. That is, turn 00:02:04.060 --> 00:02:06.540 on your boss money. That is, betray the mafia 00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:09.319 money. It speaks to the sheer scale of the damage, 00:02:09.439 --> 00:02:11.539 doesn't it? We are talking about a few million 00:02:11.539 --> 00:02:13.580 dollars missing from a hedge fund. We are talking 00:02:13.580 --> 00:02:16.500 about one coin. Oh, yeah. If you were anywhere 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:20.300 near the Internet between 2014 and 2017, you 00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:22.819 couldn't escape it. It was going to be the Bitcoin 00:02:22.819 --> 00:02:26.319 killer. That was the pitch. And the Times didn't 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:28.340 mince words when they look back at it. They called 00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:30.960 it one of the biggest scams in history. And the 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:33.639 numbers are just staggering. The estimates vary 00:02:33.639 --> 00:02:36.340 because the books were cooked so thoroughly. 00:02:36.699 --> 00:02:40.599 But we are looking at roughly $4 billion, potentially 00:02:40.599 --> 00:02:43.120 much more, siphoned from investors globally. 00:02:43.419 --> 00:02:45.539 And the tragedy of that $4 billion isn't just 00:02:45.539 --> 00:02:47.639 wealthy venture capitalists taking a haircut. 00:02:48.159 --> 00:02:50.620 We'll get into the demographics later. But the 00:02:50.620 --> 00:02:53.240 sources paint a devastating picture of where 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:55.729 this money came from. It's heartbreaking. We're 00:02:55.729 --> 00:02:57.629 talking about people in rural Uganda, people 00:02:57.629 --> 00:03:00.310 in the Rust Belt of America, people in crowded 00:03:00.310 --> 00:03:02.710 cities in China, people who frankly couldn't 00:03:02.710 --> 00:03:05.750 afford to lose $100, let alone their life savings. 00:03:06.030 --> 00:03:08.449 It was a transfer of wealth from the desperate 00:03:08.449 --> 00:03:11.250 and the hopeful to a small cabal of criminals 00:03:11.250 --> 00:03:14.129 operating out of Sofia and Dubai. And then the 00:03:14.129 --> 00:03:19.650 Vanishing Act. October 2017. She boards a Ryanair 00:03:19.650 --> 00:03:21.900 flight. which is a detail I still can't get over, 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:23.900 the banality of it. The Ryanair flight. From 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:27.689 Sofia to Athens. She lands. And then she effectively 00:03:27.689 --> 00:03:30.229 ceases to exist. And that is the fork in the 00:03:30.229 --> 00:03:32.409 road for our investigation today. Because for 00:03:32.409 --> 00:03:34.969 years, the prevailing theory, the one the FBI 00:03:34.969 --> 00:03:37.909 still officially operates under, is that she 00:03:37.909 --> 00:03:40.370 pulled off the ultimate getaway. Right, the mastermind 00:03:40.370 --> 00:03:42.509 theory. That she is sipping champagne on a yacht, 00:03:42.629 --> 00:03:44.830 maybe with a new nose and chin, hiding in plain 00:03:44.830 --> 00:03:47.909 sight. But the alternative, the alternative is 00:03:47.909 --> 00:03:50.169 much, much darker. The talkie theory. The talkie 00:03:50.169 --> 00:03:52.349 theory. The idea that she didn't escape, but 00:03:52.349 --> 00:03:54.990 was silenced. And not just silenced, but brutally 00:03:54.990 --> 00:03:57.080 murdered and destroyed. disposed of by the very 00:03:57.080 --> 00:03:59.199 organized crime figures she thought were protecting 00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:02.080 her. So our mission today is to navigate this 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.919 labyrinth. We need to deconstruct how a woman 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:07.780 who was arguably a genius, and I don't use that 00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:10.580 word lightly, went from a top tier legal career 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:13.699 to becoming a global pariah. We need to look 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:15.840 under the hood of the one coin machine to see 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.560 how it actually worked or rather how it didn't 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:20.959 work. And finally, we have to confront that. 00:04:21.610 --> 00:04:24.750 terrifying possibility regarding her fate. It 00:04:24.750 --> 00:04:27.449 is a heavy journey, but I think it reveals so 00:04:27.449 --> 00:04:30.050 much about the nature of greed, the blind spots 00:04:30.050 --> 00:04:32.910 in our financial systems, and the very thin line 00:04:32.910 --> 00:04:35.629 between white -collar crime and the violent underworld. 00:04:35.990 --> 00:04:38.269 Okay, so let's rewind the clock. Before the diamonds, 00:04:38.449 --> 00:04:41.290 before the yachts, before the FBI posters, let's 00:04:41.290 --> 00:04:44.389 look at Ruja Ignatova, the child. Right. Because 00:04:44.389 --> 00:04:47.149 usually when we profile scammers, we see a history 00:04:47.149 --> 00:04:49.870 of petty crime, maybe a lack of education or 00:04:49.870 --> 00:04:52.209 a desperate need to climb out of a hole. But 00:04:52.209 --> 00:04:54.829 Rouge's resume reads like she was being groomed 00:04:54.829 --> 00:04:57.509 to run the World Bank, not a Ponzi scheme. It 00:04:57.509 --> 00:04:59.689 is the ultimate paradox of her character. She 00:04:59.689 --> 00:05:02.689 was born in Ruse, Bulgaria in 1980 to a Romani 00:05:02.689 --> 00:05:05.310 family. Her father was an engineer, her mother 00:05:05.310 --> 00:05:07.389 a teacher, so, you know, an educated background. 00:05:07.490 --> 00:05:09.970 A solid foundation. But the pivotal moment comes 00:05:09.970 --> 00:05:12.490 when she is 10 years old. The Iron Curtain has 00:05:12.490 --> 00:05:15.189 fallen, the Eastern Bloc is opening up, and her 00:05:15.189 --> 00:05:18.790 family emigrates to Germany. And we have to pause 00:05:18.790 --> 00:05:22.519 on that dynamic. Moving from post -communist 00:05:22.519 --> 00:05:26.980 Bulgaria to Schramberg Germany in the early 90s. 00:05:27.139 --> 00:05:30.459 That is a massive cultural shock. Huge. You are 00:05:30.459 --> 00:05:32.800 an outsider. You are an immigrant. And you are 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:35.519 arguably starting with a deficit in terms of 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:39.000 social capital. Precisely. And in that environment, 00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:41.939 Ruja didn't just adapt. She conquered. We have 00:05:41.939 --> 00:05:44.120 transmits and notes from her teachers in Schramberg. 00:05:44.259 --> 00:05:46.339 One of them went on record saying she was simply 00:05:46.339 --> 00:05:48.600 the smartest student he had ever taught. The 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:50.939 smartest ever. Ever. She was skipping grades. 00:05:51.019 --> 00:05:53.519 She was devouring the curriculum. She was mastering 00:05:53.519 --> 00:05:56.180 the language. She was, by all accounts, a phenomenon. 00:05:56.519 --> 00:05:59.060 But there is a dark undercurrent to that brilliance. 00:05:59.060 --> 00:06:01.540 Yeah. You flagged a specific entry from her school 00:06:01.540 --> 00:06:03.160 book in the notes. And I want to spend a moment 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:05.439 on this because it feels like a Rosebud moment. 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:07.519 It feels like the first crack in the mask. It 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:09.860 is chilling. It's so revealing. She was writing 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:11.980 a short bio of herself for a school project. 00:06:12.259 --> 00:06:15.040 She starts off with the standard good girl narrative. 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:17.560 She writes, I am always well -behaved and cheerful 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:20.639 and describes herself as faultless. The kind 00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:22.819 of thing a teacher wants to hear. Exactly. The 00:06:22.819 --> 00:06:25.000 perfect student. But then she breaks character. 00:06:25.259 --> 00:06:27.620 On the page. Literally interrupts herself on 00:06:27.620 --> 00:06:30.779 the page. She writes, stop. Maybe we should stick 00:06:30.779 --> 00:06:33.879 to the truth. Okay, fine. Maybe I did take pleasure 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:36.259 in tormenting some students. Pleasure in tormenting. 00:06:36.259 --> 00:06:39.180 Yeah. And she continues, I was always looking 00:06:39.180 --> 00:06:41.579 for the chance to spread new, amusing stories 00:06:41.579 --> 00:06:44.639 about them. That is not just teenage mean girl 00:06:44.639 --> 00:06:47.740 behavior. That suggests a fundamental disconnect 00:06:47.740 --> 00:06:51.339 in empathy. It suggests that she viewed her intelligence 00:06:51.339 --> 00:06:54.860 not just as a tool for success, but as a weapon 00:06:54.860 --> 00:06:57.220 to manipulate those around her who weren't as 00:06:57.220 --> 00:07:00.040 sharp. It is a glimpse into a Machiavellian mindset 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:03.370 forming in real time. She recognized that she 00:07:03.370 --> 00:07:06.029 could control narratives, spread amusing stories, 00:07:06.129 --> 00:07:08.670 and that she derived satisfaction from the power 00:07:08.670 --> 00:07:10.610 imbalance. You're right. If you fast forward 00:07:10.610 --> 00:07:13.490 20 years, she's doing the exact same thing, just 00:07:13.490 --> 00:07:15.750 on a global stage with billions of dollars instead 00:07:15.750 --> 00:07:17.910 of schoolyard rumors. It's the same playbook. 00:07:18.129 --> 00:07:21.050 But despite that glimpse of darkness, the academic 00:07:21.050 --> 00:07:23.350 train kept rolling. She gets a scholarship to 00:07:23.350 --> 00:07:25.850 the University of Constance. She earns a Ph .D. 00:07:25.850 --> 00:07:28.779 in private international law in 2005. And I want 00:07:28.779 --> 00:07:30.620 to be clear for the listener. This wasn't a mail 00:07:30.620 --> 00:07:33.740 order degree. Oh, no. This was legitimate, rigorous 00:07:33.740 --> 00:07:37.759 scholarship. Her dissertation topic is fascinating 00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:41.339 in hindsight. Lex cause a in conflict of laws. 00:07:42.060 --> 00:07:44.800 Which sounds incredibly dense. It is. But to 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:48.620 simplify a very complex legal concept, she was 00:07:48.620 --> 00:07:51.860 studying which jurisdictions laws apply when 00:07:51.860 --> 00:07:54.439 a legal case crosses international borders. Which 00:07:54.439 --> 00:07:56.759 is essentially the how -to guide for international 00:07:56.759 --> 00:07:59.000 evasion. You couldn't write a better backstory 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:02.180 for a future fugitive. She spent years analyzing 00:08:02.180 --> 00:08:04.360 the seams and the loopholes between different 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:07.079 countries' legal systems. She understood where 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:09.899 the gray areas were. She understood how to structure 00:08:09.899 --> 00:08:12.600 companies so that liability was impossible to 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:14.660 pin down. She wasn't just breaking the law later 00:08:14.660 --> 00:08:16.939 on. She was hacking it. Yes, that's the perfect 00:08:16.939 --> 00:08:19.079 word for it. She also picks up a master's degree 00:08:19.079 --> 00:08:21.759 in European law from Oxford University. So now 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:24.060 she has the German PhD and the Oxford credential. 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:27.319 Just absolute powerhouse of a resume. And then 00:08:27.319 --> 00:08:30.240 she lands at McKinsey & Company in Sofia. Now, 00:08:30.259 --> 00:08:31.860 for our audience, we don't need to explain what 00:08:31.860 --> 00:08:34.159 McKinsey is. You know the reputation. It's the 00:08:34.159 --> 00:08:37.100 boot camp for the corporate elite. The best of 00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:39.419 the best. If you make it at McKinsey, you are 00:08:39.419 --> 00:08:41.799 set. You have the golden ticket. You are solving 00:08:41.799 --> 00:08:44.220 complex problems for the biggest entities in 00:08:44.220 --> 00:08:47.700 the world. The rigorous analytical grooming that 00:08:47.700 --> 00:08:50.720 happens there is legendary. It is not a place 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.320 for sloppy thinkers. So she has it all. The pedigree, 00:08:54.360 --> 00:08:57.379 the intellect, the career path. She could have 00:08:57.379 --> 00:09:00.259 been a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She could 00:09:00.259 --> 00:09:02.720 have been a high -ranking diplomat. Why make 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.620 the jump? Why go from the legitimate fast track? 00:09:05.980 --> 00:09:08.179 To the gray zone. I think it comes down to speed 00:09:08.179 --> 00:09:10.679 and maybe a bit of that arrogance we saw in the 00:09:10.679 --> 00:09:12.919 school book. The corporate ladder, even for a 00:09:12.919 --> 00:09:14.960 superstar, takes time to climb. You have to put 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:17.240 in the years, play the game. Right. There are 00:09:17.240 --> 00:09:19.659 rules. The gray zone, the world of high -yield 00:09:19.659 --> 00:09:21.759 investment programs and questionable financial 00:09:21.759 --> 00:09:24.679 structures, offers instant gratification. We 00:09:24.679 --> 00:09:27.159 see the shift around 2012. It starts with her 00:09:27.159 --> 00:09:30.200 father, Plamyn Ignatov. They acquire a company, 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:32.240 a metalworking foundry, I believe, and it goes 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:33.899 bankrupt under very suspicious circumstances. 00:09:34.669 --> 00:09:37.169 It was a classic bust out. They bought a struggling 00:09:37.169 --> 00:09:39.649 company, loaded it with debt, stripped all the 00:09:39.649 --> 00:09:42.370 valuable assets, and then let it collapse, leaving 00:09:42.370 --> 00:09:44.610 the creditors with nothing. And she was caught. 00:09:44.830 --> 00:09:48.070 She was. In 2012, she was convicted of fraud 00:09:48.070 --> 00:09:50.009 in Germany in connection with that bankruptcy. 00:09:50.350 --> 00:09:53.110 She received a suspended sentence of 14 months. 00:09:53.690 --> 00:09:56.590 Now most people if they are that close to prison, 00:09:56.669 --> 00:09:58.850 especially someone with her background, would 00:09:58.850 --> 00:10:00.990 be scared straight. Absolutely. They would retreat 00:10:00.990 --> 00:10:04.169 back to the safety of legal consulting. But Ruja 00:10:04.169 --> 00:10:06.110 seems to have taken a different lesson from it. 00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:09.730 The lesson she likely learned was, I didn't dream 00:10:09.730 --> 00:10:13.250 big enough. Or perhaps I need to structure it 00:10:13.250 --> 00:10:15.470 better next time. Because almost immediately 00:10:15.470 --> 00:10:18.409 after, in 2013, she gets involved with something 00:10:18.409 --> 00:10:21.389 called Bitcoin. Bitcoin. It sounds like a generic 00:10:21.389 --> 00:10:23.909 brand soda version of Bitcoin. It essentially 00:10:23.909 --> 00:10:26.669 was. It was a multi -level marketing scheme selling 00:10:26.669 --> 00:10:29.309 a digital currency. It failed pretty quickly. 00:10:29.389 --> 00:10:32.169 But for Ruja, it was the prototype. It was the 00:10:32.169 --> 00:10:34.629 dress rehearsal. She saw the potential. She saw 00:10:34.629 --> 00:10:36.909 the mechanics of how you could combine the fervor 00:10:36.909 --> 00:10:39.389 of MLM, that religious zeal of network marketing, 00:10:39.529 --> 00:10:42.490 with the mystery of cryptocurrency. She realized 00:10:42.490 --> 00:10:44.350 that if she could package it better, if she could 00:10:44.350 --> 00:10:46.590 be the charismatic face of it, the potential 00:10:46.590 --> 00:10:49.950 was limitless. And that brings us to 2014, the 00:10:49.950 --> 00:10:53.409 launch of OneCoin. And the timing here is critical. 00:10:53.610 --> 00:10:57.580 Perfect timing. We're in the post. 2013 Bitcoin 00:10:57.580 --> 00:11:00.299 boom. People have heard the stories of the pizza 00:11:00.299 --> 00:11:02.740 guy who spent 10 ,000 bitcoins on two pizzas, 00:11:02.919 --> 00:11:05.840 which were now worth millions. The fear of missing 00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:09.340 out was palpable in the air. FOMO is a powerful 00:11:09.340 --> 00:11:12.580 drug. Rusha Ignatoba didn't just sell a product, 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:14.980 she sold a second chance. Her pitch was specifically 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:16.960 designed for people who felt they had missed 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:18.960 the boat on the internet boom, missed the boat 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:21.299 on Bitcoin, and were looking for that one winning 00:11:21.299 --> 00:11:24.279 lottery ticket. She stood on stage. And we have 00:11:24.279 --> 00:11:26.360 to talk about the presentation. Oh, the spectacle. 00:11:26.539 --> 00:11:28.679 The ball gowns, the diamonds, the pyrotechnics. 00:11:28.740 --> 00:11:30.720 She looked like a movie star. She commanded the 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:33.600 room and you told them Bitcoin is for the geeks. 00:11:34.039 --> 00:11:36.700 Bitcoin is for the anarchists. One coin is for 00:11:36.700 --> 00:11:39.340 you. She positioned it as the Bitcoin killer. 00:11:39.860 --> 00:11:43.019 But the genius of the pitch was in the friction 00:11:43.019 --> 00:11:46.179 or rather the lack of it. If you wanted to buy 00:11:46.179 --> 00:11:49.000 Bitcoin in 2014, it was a hassle. It was really 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.149 hard. You needed to understand private keys. 00:11:51.289 --> 00:11:53.269 You needed to set up a wallet. You had to deal 00:11:53.269 --> 00:11:56.350 with shady exchanges. It was intimidating for 00:11:56.350 --> 00:11:58.669 a layperson. Ruja said, forget all that. She 00:11:58.669 --> 00:12:01.049 said, we will do the technical stuff. You just 00:12:01.049 --> 00:12:03.429 send money to this bank account and we will credit 00:12:03.429 --> 00:12:05.889 your account on our website with one coin. It 00:12:05.889 --> 00:12:09.250 was centralized. It was easy. And that convenience 00:12:09.250 --> 00:12:12.289 was the trap. Because, and this is the part that 00:12:12.289 --> 00:12:14.490 still blows my mind every time I review the technical 00:12:14.490 --> 00:12:18.610 specs, there was no blockchain. None. Zero. Zip. 00:12:18.970 --> 00:12:22.029 How do you run a cryptocurrency without a blockchain? 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:24.179 That's like saying you're running a library, 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:25.879 but there are no books, just a guy describing 00:12:25.879 --> 00:12:29.039 books to you. That is a perfect analogy. A cryptocurrency, 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:31.940 by its very definition, relies on a distributed 00:12:31.940 --> 00:12:35.379 ledger. A blockchain is a transparent, immutable 00:12:35.379 --> 00:12:37.899 record of transactions that no single person 00:12:37.899 --> 00:12:40.559 controls. Right. OneCoin was in SQL database. 00:12:40.820 --> 00:12:43.340 It was a spreadsheet on a server in Bulgaria, 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:47.179 which means Rusha Ignatova and her inner circle 00:12:47.179 --> 00:12:50.200 had God mode access. If they wanted the price 00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:52.519 of OneCoin to go up. They didn't need market 00:12:52.519 --> 00:12:54.500 forces. They just typed a new number into the 00:12:54.500 --> 00:12:57.519 column. Today it is five euros. Tomorrow it is 00:12:57.519 --> 00:13:00.600 six euros. Exactly. And the investors would log 00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:02.620 in, see the number go up, and get a dopamine 00:13:02.620 --> 00:13:05.580 hit. Look how much money I'm making. But it was 00:13:05.580 --> 00:13:08.940 a simulation. It was a video game economy. passing 00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:12.320 itself off as high finance. Precisely. But because 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:15.399 she had the credentials, the Oxford degree, the 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:18.600 McKinsey resume people suspended their disbelief. 00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:20.820 They thought, well, she is a genius lawyer. She 00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:22.759 must have figured out a new technology that's 00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:25.320 better than blockchain. The trust me factor was 00:13:25.320 --> 00:13:28.159 off the charts. And to distribute this, she used 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:30.460 the multilevel marketing structure, the network. 00:13:30.700 --> 00:13:33.700 This was the viral engine. In a traditional Ponzi 00:13:33.700 --> 00:13:35.759 scheme, the fraudster has to constantly find 00:13:35.759 --> 00:13:37.860 new victims themselves. Which is hard work. In 00:13:37.860 --> 00:13:39.980 an MLM, the victims become the perpetrators. 00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:41.940 You recruit your cousin, your neighbor, your 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:43.759 church group. Because you get a commission on 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:46.360 their investment, it weaponizes trust. It does. 00:13:46.460 --> 00:13:48.860 You aren't buying one coin because you trust 00:13:48.860 --> 00:13:50.960 Ruja, this woman in a ball gown you've never 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:52.639 met. You're buying it because you trust your 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:54.559 Uncle Bob who told you about it at Thanksgiving. 00:13:54.940 --> 00:13:57.840 And it went global instantly. The documents show 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:00.679 funds pouring in from everywhere. China was obviously 00:14:00.679 --> 00:14:03.019 a massive market. Billions came out of there. 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:06.179 A huge portion. But we also see significant activity 00:14:06.179 --> 00:14:09.460 in Brazil, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Yemen, Palestine, 00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:13.700 Norway, Canada. I mean, the list is endless. 00:14:14.039 --> 00:14:16.980 It creates a truly diverse portrait of victimization. 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:20.379 And this is where the story gets heavy. It is 00:14:20.379 --> 00:14:22.919 easy to look at the glitz in the yacht, but the 00:14:22.919 --> 00:14:25.799 money paying for that yacht came from real suffering. 00:14:26.429 --> 00:14:29.070 We have reports of people in rural Uganda selling 00:14:29.070 --> 00:14:31.590 their livestock, families selling their ancestral 00:14:31.590 --> 00:14:34.210 land. These are people living in subsistence 00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:36.789 economies. Being told that this digital coin 00:14:36.789 --> 00:14:39.110 is their ticket to the modern world. There is 00:14:39.110 --> 00:14:41.330 a heartbreaking account of a village where almost 00:14:41.330 --> 00:14:43.370 everyone bought in. They were promised that their 00:14:43.370 --> 00:14:45.490 investment would double, triple. They were waiting 00:14:45.490 --> 00:14:47.429 for the day one coin would go public and they 00:14:47.429 --> 00:14:49.990 could cash out. And they are still waiting. They 00:14:49.990 --> 00:14:53.750 are still waiting. Meanwhile, Ruja is buying 00:14:53.750 --> 00:14:57.620 the Davina. The yacht. A 44 -meter luxury vessel. 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:01.179 She's buying penthouses in Kensington. She's 00:15:01.179 --> 00:15:03.419 buying a mansion in Sofia and filling it with 00:15:03.419 --> 00:15:06.340 custom furniture and priceless art. The wealth 00:15:06.340 --> 00:15:09.529 transfer was... She was living like a queen, 00:15:09.649 --> 00:15:12.250 literally the crypto queen, while her investors 00:15:12.250 --> 00:15:15.169 were slipping into destitute poverty. And she 00:15:15.169 --> 00:15:18.230 kept this illusion alive for a surprisingly long 00:15:18.230 --> 00:15:22.190 time, from 2014 to late 2017. That's three years. 00:15:22.309 --> 00:15:25.070 A long time in the crypto world. But the cracks 00:15:25.070 --> 00:15:27.720 were forming. You can't fake a blockchain forever. 00:15:27.879 --> 00:15:30.220 Eventually, people want to sell. They want their 00:15:30.220 --> 00:15:32.759 money out. That is the math of the Ponzi. You 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:35.159 can delay withdrawals. You can create lockup 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:37.080 periods. You can say, we are preparing for the 00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.820 IPO. But eventually, the demand for cash exceeds 00:15:39.820 --> 00:15:41.960 the cash on hand. And governments were starting 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:45.159 to notice. Simultaneously, the regulators were 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:47.120 waking up. Banks were closing their accounts 00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:49.519 because of money laundering flags. Law enforcement 00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:51.320 in Germany and the U .S. were starting to share 00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:53.320 files. The walls were closing in. Which brings 00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:58.480 us to October 2017. The climax. There is a massive 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:01.559 event scheduled in Lisbon, Portugal. The promoters 00:16:01.559 --> 00:16:03.700 are there. The investors are there. The energy 00:16:03.700 --> 00:16:06.860 is high. Everyone is waiting for Dr. Ruzsa to 00:16:06.860 --> 00:16:08.580 come out and give the roadmap for the future. 00:16:08.740 --> 00:16:10.879 And she is a no -show. That must have been the 00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:12.639 moment the panic set in for the inner circle. 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:15.860 I can only imagine the chaos. But Ruzsa wasn't 00:16:15.860 --> 00:16:19.860 in Lisbon. On October 25, 2017, she was in Sofia. 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:23.220 And she was making moves. Why did she run on 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:26.250 that specific day? Was it just intuition? or 00:16:26.250 --> 00:16:28.669 something more. It is highly probable she was 00:16:28.669 --> 00:16:30.809 tipped off. And this introduces a character who 00:16:30.809 --> 00:16:33.830 really cements the spy thriller aspect of this 00:16:33.830 --> 00:16:36.950 case, Frank Schneider. The spy chief. Yes. Frank 00:16:36.950 --> 00:16:38.950 Schneider was the former head of operations for 00:16:38.950 --> 00:16:41.789 Luxembourg's intelligence service. He was a man 00:16:41.789 --> 00:16:44.289 who knew how the deep state worked, how investigations 00:16:44.289 --> 00:16:46.809 were conducted, and how to evade them. And he 00:16:46.809 --> 00:16:49.190 was on Ruge's payroll. He was her crisis manager. 00:16:49.740 --> 00:16:51.980 I mean, think about that for a second. A cryptocurrency 00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:54.600 scammer hiring a former national intelligence 00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:57.220 director. That is a level of sophistication you 00:16:57.220 --> 00:16:59.899 don't see in your average fraud case. It's unbelievable. 00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:02.700 The U .S. prosecutors have alleged that Schneider 00:17:02.700 --> 00:17:04.779 provided her with confidential police reports. 00:17:05.099 --> 00:17:07.920 He essentially gave her the playbook of the people 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.880 chasing her. He reportedly told her the window 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.380 is closing. If you stay, you will be arrested. 00:17:13.740 --> 00:17:16.400 So she makes the decision. She leaves her office 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:22.039 in Sofia. She leaves her mansion. And most disturbingly, 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:24.759 she leaves her family. Her husband, a German 00:17:24.759 --> 00:17:27.640 lawyer named Bjorn Strahl. And their daughter. 00:17:27.799 --> 00:17:29.700 Who was just a baby at the time. The daughter 00:17:29.700 --> 00:17:33.119 was born in 2016. She was barely a toddler. Ruja 00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:35.759 Ignatova boarded that Ryanair flight to Athens 00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:38.259 alone. The Ryanair detail always sticks with 00:17:38.259 --> 00:17:40.480 me. You have billions of dollars. You can charter 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:43.660 a Gulfstream. You can buy a plane. Why fly a 00:17:43.660 --> 00:17:45.640 budget commercial airline? It might have been 00:17:45.640 --> 00:17:48.579 tradecraft. Private jets leave a very specific 00:17:48.579 --> 00:17:51.339 paper trail. They require flight plans that are 00:17:51.339 --> 00:17:53.880 easily tracked by authorities. Good point. A 00:17:53.880 --> 00:17:56.049 commercial flight. bought under a slightly different 00:17:56.049 --> 00:17:58.630 name or just getting lost in the crowd of tourists 00:17:58.630 --> 00:18:01.289 offers a certain anonymity. It's the hide in 00:18:01.289 --> 00:18:04.490 the herd strategy. So she lands in Athens. There 00:18:04.490 --> 00:18:06.789 are cameras that catch her at the airport. And 00:18:06.789 --> 00:18:09.950 that is it. That is the cliff edge. After Athens, 00:18:10.150 --> 00:18:13.150 the screen goes black. The trail goes cold immediately. 00:18:13.210 --> 00:18:16.750 She lands and presumably she's met by someone 00:18:16.750 --> 00:18:18.950 where she gets in a car and drives to a port 00:18:18.950 --> 00:18:22.309 or she gets on another plane. But from that moment 00:18:22.309 --> 00:18:25.750 in October 2017, there has been no confirmed, 00:18:25.910 --> 00:18:29.769 verified sighting of Ruha Ignatova. But the machine 00:18:29.769 --> 00:18:32.029 didn't stop just because a driver jumped out. 00:18:32.109 --> 00:18:35.000 Her brother, Konstantin Ignatov -Konsti. Took 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:37.420 the wheel. Poor Consti. And I use poor loosely 00:18:37.420 --> 00:18:39.759 because he was complicit, but he was clearly 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:41.660 the patsy. He seems totally out of his depth. 00:18:41.740 --> 00:18:44.339 He was the beta to Rouge's alpha. He didn't have 00:18:44.339 --> 00:18:46.160 her brilliance and he certainly didn't have her 00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:49.000 exit strategy. He took over the public face of 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:51.039 OneCoin telling everyone, Rouge is just taking 00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:52.880 a break. She's working on the back end. Everything 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:55.420 is fine. That didn't last long. No. Yeah. The 00:18:55.420 --> 00:18:57.480 FBI caught up with him at Los Angeles International 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:01.319 Airport in March of 2019. He was arrested and 00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:03.079 the house of cards collapsed. And he started 00:19:03.079 --> 00:19:05.660 talking. He pleaded guilty to fraud and money 00:19:05.660 --> 00:19:08.240 laundering. He ended up cooperating, singing 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:11.079 like a canary to the feds, likely because he 00:19:11.079 --> 00:19:13.039 realized his sister had left him holding the 00:19:13.039 --> 00:19:16.019 bag for a multibillion dollar international criminal 00:19:16.019 --> 00:19:18.180 enterprise. The betrayal there, she should experience. 00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:20.720 She saves herself and leaves her brother to face 00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:22.740 the U .S. justice system. It reinforces that 00:19:22.740 --> 00:19:24.640 psychological profile we talked about earlier, 00:19:24.740 --> 00:19:27.279 the pleasure in tormenting, or at least the absolute 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:29.519 priority of self -preservation above all human 00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:32.680 connection, even family. So Consti is in custody. 00:19:32.839 --> 00:19:36.460 The DOJ unseals the indictment in 2019. Wire 00:19:36.460 --> 00:19:39.240 fraud, securities fraud, money laundering. The 00:19:39.240 --> 00:19:42.079 potential sentence is basically life 90 years. 00:19:42.259 --> 00:19:44.940 It is a hammer blow. And the Germans are issuing 00:19:44.940 --> 00:19:47.900 red notices through Interpol. The world is looking 00:19:47.900 --> 00:19:50.579 for her, but she's a ghost. And that brings us 00:19:50.579 --> 00:19:53.980 to the status update. June 2022, the FBI elevates 00:19:53.980 --> 00:19:56.490 her to the 10 most wanted list. It was a significant 00:19:56.490 --> 00:19:58.450 press conference. They made it clear that they 00:19:58.450 --> 00:20:01.509 consider her a continuing threat. And the gender 00:20:01.509 --> 00:20:04.390 aspect is notable. She stands out on a list usually 00:20:04.390 --> 00:20:07.269 populated by violent men. It shows that the Bureau 00:20:07.269 --> 00:20:09.769 views financial crimes of this magnitude as a 00:20:09.769 --> 00:20:11.930 form of violence in themselves. The very real 00:20:11.930 --> 00:20:16.069 violence. And now the $5 million reward. Which 00:20:16.069 --> 00:20:19.130 leads us to the ultimate question. Who collects 00:20:19.130 --> 00:20:21.970 it? Because that money implies that someone knows 00:20:21.970 --> 00:20:24.799 where she is. Or where she was. Right. So let's 00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:27.220 look at the theories. Theory one, the mastermind. 00:20:27.420 --> 00:20:30.980 This is the gone girl theory. She is alive. This 00:20:30.980 --> 00:20:33.180 is what the FBI believes, or at least it is their 00:20:33.180 --> 00:20:35.779 operational stance. Special Agent Paul Roberts 00:20:35.779 --> 00:20:37.819 has been very clear that they are hunting a living 00:20:37.819 --> 00:20:41.039 fugitive. And the logic holds water. She got 00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:43.240 away with a massive amount of liquidity. We aren't 00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:45.380 sure exactly how much, but certainly hundreds 00:20:45.380 --> 00:20:48.009 of millions in cash. crypto and diamonds. With 00:20:48.009 --> 00:20:50.130 that kind of capital, the world is your oyster. 00:20:50.369 --> 00:20:52.890 You can buy a diplomatic passport from a corrupt 00:20:52.890 --> 00:20:55.809 nation. You can undergo extensive plastic surgery, 00:20:55.950 --> 00:20:58.089 change your jawline, your nose, the color of 00:20:58.089 --> 00:20:59.789 your eyes. Change your fingerprints even. You 00:20:59.789 --> 00:21:02.970 can live in a compound in Dubai where extradition 00:21:02.970 --> 00:21:05.730 is difficult. You can live on a yacht in international 00:21:05.730 --> 00:21:08.849 waters, resupplied by tenders, never stepping 00:21:08.849 --> 00:21:11.269 foot on land. It is the ultimate fantasy of the 00:21:11.269 --> 00:21:13.509 criminal mastermind. Yeah. Defeating the system 00:21:13.509 --> 00:21:17.519 and living in luxury. But... There is a fly in 00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:20.000 the ointment. A big one. Even with a new face, 00:21:20.099 --> 00:21:23.079 even with billions, it is hard to stay hidden 00:21:23.079 --> 00:21:27.140 for seven years. People talk. Maids talk. Crew 00:21:27.140 --> 00:21:29.700 members on yachts talk. Especially when the reward 00:21:29.700 --> 00:21:33.839 is $5 million. That tests loyalty. Which is why 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:36.960 many observers, including some very brave Bulgarian 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:39.559 journalists, are leaning towards Theory 2. The 00:21:39.559 --> 00:21:42.079 murder theory. This takes us into the dark heart 00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:44.579 of the Bulgarian underworld. We have to talk 00:21:44.579 --> 00:21:47.380 about Hristoforas Nikosamanatidis, better known 00:21:47.380 --> 00:21:49.700 as Taki. Taki. He's not a tech bro. He's not 00:21:49.700 --> 00:21:53.339 a banker. No. Taki is a legendary figure in Bulgarian 00:21:53.339 --> 00:21:55.740 organized crime, allegedly involved in cocaine 00:21:55.740 --> 00:21:58.119 trafficking, protection rackets, the works. He's 00:21:58.119 --> 00:21:59.920 considered one of the most powerful and feared 00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:02.619 drug lords in the country. So he was her protector. 00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:06.299 Initially, yes. The reporting suggests that when 00:22:06.299 --> 00:22:08.900 Ruja needed security, when she needed to launder 00:22:08.900 --> 00:22:11.519 the dirty cash coming out of one coin, she turned 00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:14.869 to Taki's organization. He provided the muscle. 00:22:15.049 --> 00:22:17.849 He provided the logistics to move her from Sofia 00:22:17.849 --> 00:22:20.849 to Athens. But the theory is that the relationship 00:22:20.849 --> 00:22:24.130 soured. Dramatically. Why kill the golden goose? 00:22:24.490 --> 00:22:27.390 She was bringing in billions. Because a golden 00:22:27.390 --> 00:22:29.970 goose that is being hunted by the FBI, Interpol, 00:22:30.069 --> 00:22:32.170 and half the world's intelligence agencies becomes 00:22:32.170 --> 00:22:35.509 a radioactive goose. She knew too much. She knew 00:22:35.509 --> 00:22:36.950 where all the bodies were buried, financially 00:22:36.950 --> 00:22:40.190 speaking. She knew how Taki's operation laundered 00:22:40.190 --> 00:22:42.519 money. If she was caught, if she was squeezed 00:22:42.519 --> 00:22:45.019 by the Americans like her brother was, she could 00:22:45.019 --> 00:22:47.180 trade Taki to save herself. She was a liability. 00:22:47.460 --> 00:22:50.799 A massive one. And the Bird Report, that stands 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:52.900 for the Bureau of Investigative Reporting and 00:22:52.900 --> 00:22:56.480 Data, published a bombshell in 2023. They got 00:22:56.480 --> 00:22:58.680 their hands on police documents that cited an 00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:00.759 informant. This is the drunk brother -in -law 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:04.599 story. It is grimly classic. The informant claimed 00:23:04.599 --> 00:23:07.559 to have overheard Georgie Vasilev, who is Taki's 00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:10.539 brother -in -law, speaking while heavily intoxicated. 00:23:10.700 --> 00:23:13.119 And in that drunken state, Vasilev allegedly 00:23:13.119 --> 00:23:16.279 confessed that Ruja Ignatova had been killed 00:23:16.279 --> 00:23:19.920 in November 2018, about a year after she vanished. 00:23:20.099 --> 00:23:22.700 She was in hiding for a year. protected by them, 00:23:22.779 --> 00:23:24.740 and then they decided she was too much of a risk. 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:27.119 That's the theory. And the details provided were 00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:30.059 specific. The allegation is that she was on a 00:23:30.059 --> 00:23:32.759 yacht in the Ionian Sea. She was murdered. And 00:23:32.759 --> 00:23:35.299 then, to ensure she was never found, her body 00:23:35.299 --> 00:23:37.559 was dismembered and thrown overboard. Chopped 00:23:37.559 --> 00:23:39.619 up and tossed into the sea. That is a message. 00:23:39.819 --> 00:23:41.980 That isn't just a killing. That is an erasure. 00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:44.940 It is a brutal final solution. It solves the 00:23:44.940 --> 00:23:46.920 problem of the body. It solves the problem of 00:23:46.920 --> 00:23:49.809 the witness. And it explains why, despite the 00:23:49.809 --> 00:23:52.170 massive reward and the global manhunt, there 00:23:52.170 --> 00:23:54.890 has been zero credible proof of life since 2017. 00:23:55.289 --> 00:23:57.390 And there is collateral damage that supports 00:23:57.390 --> 00:24:00.109 this theory. The danger is real. We mentioned 00:24:00.109 --> 00:24:02.849 Krezmir Keminov, known as Kuro. Kuro was another 00:24:02.849 --> 00:24:06.589 major figure in the Bulgarian underworld, a rival 00:24:06.589 --> 00:24:09.609 to Taki in some respects. The word on the street 00:24:09.609 --> 00:24:11.589 was that he was preparing to talk to the Americans. 00:24:11.910 --> 00:24:14.650 About Ruja? He had information about her fate, 00:24:14.750 --> 00:24:16.789 and he was going to leverage it, likely to get 00:24:16.789 --> 00:24:18.390 a deal for himself. And what happened to him? 00:24:18.630 --> 00:24:22.430 In May 2023, hitmen entered his home in an upscale 00:24:22.430 --> 00:24:25.509 suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. They executed 00:24:25.509 --> 00:24:29.109 him, his wife, and two others. It was a professional, 00:24:29.170 --> 00:24:32.390 military -style hit. That sends a chilling signal. 00:24:32.710 --> 00:24:35.240 If you talk about Ruja, you die. It certainly 00:24:35.240 --> 00:24:37.339 suggests that there are powerful people who are 00:24:37.339 --> 00:24:39.259 very invested in keeping the truth regarding 00:24:39.259 --> 00:24:42.180 her disappearance buried. If she was just hiding 00:24:42.180 --> 00:24:44.980 on a beach, why wipe out a crime boss in South 00:24:44.980 --> 00:24:47.420 Africa who wanted to talk about her? It implies 00:24:47.420 --> 00:24:49.980 there is a secret worth killing for. A multi 00:24:49.980 --> 00:24:52.539 -billion dollar secret. So we are left with this 00:24:52.539 --> 00:24:54.839 Schrodinger's cat situation. She's either the 00:24:54.839 --> 00:24:56.880 most successful fugitive in history, living the 00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:59.480 high life while the FBI chases shadows. War. 00:24:59.579 --> 00:25:02.299 Or she has been dead for years, betrayed by the 00:25:02.299 --> 00:25:04.960 sharks she tried to swim with. It is a mystery, 00:25:05.079 --> 00:25:08.019 wrapped in a scam, wrapped in a tragedy. And 00:25:08.019 --> 00:25:10.859 frankly, both outcomes are disturbing. Let's 00:25:10.859 --> 00:25:12.720 spend our final few minutes reflecting on what 00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:14.980 this all means, because we started this deep 00:25:14.980 --> 00:25:18.400 dive talking about a prodigy, a girl who could 00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:20.500 have been anything. That duality is what sticks 00:25:20.500 --> 00:25:23.059 with me. You look at the photos of her at Oxford 00:25:23.059 --> 00:25:25.880 in her graduation gown looking proud and legitimate, 00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:28.099 and then you look at the photos of her in the 00:25:28.099 --> 00:25:31.890 ball gowns hawking a fake coin. It is a tragedy 00:25:31.890 --> 00:25:34.650 of wasted potential. She had the intellect to 00:25:34.650 --> 00:25:38.390 cure cancer or fix the energy crisis or negotiate 00:25:38.390 --> 00:25:41.670 peace treaties. She chose to steal. And not just 00:25:41.670 --> 00:25:44.150 steal, but to exploit trust on an industrial 00:25:44.150 --> 00:25:47.349 scale. OneCoin didn't just hurt wallets. It hurt 00:25:47.349 --> 00:25:49.809 the concept of innovation. It took the excitement 00:25:49.809 --> 00:25:51.930 people felt about a new technology cryptocurrency 00:25:51.930 --> 00:25:55.089 and weaponized it against them. It made people 00:25:55.089 --> 00:25:57.720 cynical. It made people afraid to trust the next 00:25:57.720 --> 00:26:00.579 big idea. It really did. And it preyed on the 00:26:00.579 --> 00:26:02.880 vulnerable. That schoolbook entry, Pleasure in 00:26:02.880 --> 00:26:05.940 Tormenting, it manifested as a pleasure in dominating. 00:26:06.319 --> 00:26:09.140 She dominated the uneducated, the hopeful, the 00:26:09.140 --> 00:26:11.720 desperate. She looked at a farmer in Uganda and 00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:14.839 saw a mark. That is a specific kind of evil. 00:26:14.980 --> 00:26:17.700 It is. It is the evil of the predator who wears 00:26:17.700 --> 00:26:20.680 a suit, or in her case, a diamond -encrusted 00:26:20.680 --> 00:26:23.990 gown. So where do we leave the listener? The 00:26:23.990 --> 00:26:27.170 case is technically open. The FBI reward is active. 00:26:28.089 --> 00:26:30.210 Europol had her on their most wanted list for 00:26:30.210 --> 00:26:32.069 a bit, then took her off for some reason, which 00:26:32.069 --> 00:26:34.210 is a whole other mystery. Yeah, that was strange. 00:26:34.390 --> 00:26:36.009 But I think we leave them with the question of 00:26:36.009 --> 00:26:38.710 justice. If the talkie theory is true, if she 00:26:38.710 --> 00:26:41.430 was murdered on that yacht, is that justice? 00:26:41.670 --> 00:26:44.230 Is being killed by your criminal associates a 00:26:44.230 --> 00:26:46.900 fitting punishment? Or is it an escape? Exactly. 00:26:47.079 --> 00:26:49.599 Is it an escape? Because if she is dead, she 00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:51.200 never had to sit in a courtroom. She never had 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:52.839 to look her victims in the eye. She never had 00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:54.920 to serve a day in prison. The secrets of where 00:26:54.920 --> 00:26:57.380 the billions went would have died with her. Precisely. 00:26:57.380 --> 00:27:00.160 The money is likely gone, absorbed into the dark 00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:03.859 economy. The victims get no restitution, no closure. 00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:07.319 And if she is alive? If she is alive, then she 00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:09.819 is the ultimate test case for the axiom that 00:27:09.819 --> 00:27:12.779 crime doesn't pay. Because right now, for her, 00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:16.400 it... pay billions if she is sitting in a villa 00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:19.920 watching cnn seeing her face on the most wanted 00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:22.799 list with a five million dollar price tag i wonder 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:25.880 if she feels fear or if she feels that same arrogance 00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:28.680 she felt as a 10 year old in schramberg i'm smarter 00:27:28.680 --> 00:27:30.839 than all of you that has always been her driving 00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:33.059 force well if you are listening ruja and hey 00:27:33.059 --> 00:27:35.619 we have a global audience so who knows the fbi 00:27:35.619 --> 00:27:38.220 is looking for you and for everyone else if you 00:27:38.220 --> 00:27:41.039 know something that five million dollars is real 00:27:41.500 --> 00:27:44.039 And for the rest of us, it's a reminder. If someone 00:27:44.039 --> 00:27:46.259 promises you a guaranteed return, that will change 00:27:46.259 --> 00:27:48.140 your life. And they tell you not to worry about 00:27:48.140 --> 00:27:51.220 the technical details. Stay skeptical. Stay curious. 00:27:51.259 --> 00:27:53.299 And thanks for diving deep with us. Until next 00:27:53.299 --> 00:27:53.559 time.