WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.240 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:04.860 not just looking at a scam. We're looking at 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:07.240 the scam. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. 00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:09.279 And I don't say that lightly. You know, we cover 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:12.119 a lot of failed startups, bad investments, tech 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:15.339 that just, it just didn't pan out. But usually, 00:00:15.539 --> 00:00:18.219 those start with good intentions, right? Exactly. 00:00:18.260 --> 00:00:20.339 Someone has a dream, they try to build it, and 00:00:20.339 --> 00:00:24.600 it crashes. Most failures are tragedies of incompetence 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:28.980 or bad timing. What we are looking at today is 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:32.659 a tragedy of intent. A $4 billion tragedy of 00:00:32.659 --> 00:00:36.960 intent. We are talking about one coin. And if 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:39.420 you were anywhere near a computer or a financial 00:00:39.420 --> 00:00:42.859 discussion between, say, 2014 and 2017, you probably 00:00:42.859 --> 00:00:45.479 heard the noise. It was deafening. That was everywhere. 00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:47.520 It was pitched as the Bitcoin killer. It was 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:49.460 supposed to be the democratization of finance 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:51.869 for the little guy. Right. But as The Times put 00:00:51.869 --> 00:00:53.810 it later, it ended up being one of the biggest 00:00:53.810 --> 00:00:56.049 scams in history. And that figure $4 billion, 00:00:56.270 --> 00:00:59.750 that's probably the conservative estimate. Some 00:00:59.750 --> 00:01:02.210 investigators think it could be much, much higher. 00:01:02.369 --> 00:01:05.129 That's insane. But what makes OneCoin so fascinating 00:01:05.129 --> 00:01:06.930 to me and why I think it's the perfect subject 00:01:06.930 --> 00:01:09.670 for a deep dive is that it wasn't just a financial 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:13.489 crime. It was a psychological masterpiece. How 00:01:13.489 --> 00:01:16.430 so? It leveraged the two biggest drivers of human 00:01:16.430 --> 00:01:21.129 behavior. The fear of missing out and the complete 00:01:21.129 --> 00:01:23.569 confusion around new technology. Right. Because 00:01:23.569 --> 00:01:26.349 2014 was a weird time for crypto. Bitcoin had 00:01:26.349 --> 00:01:28.870 just had that massive run up in 2013. You remember 00:01:28.870 --> 00:01:31.069 it hit a thousand dollars for the first time 00:01:31.069 --> 00:01:33.609 and then it crashed. Right. It crashed hard. 00:01:33.689 --> 00:01:36.450 But the public consciousness had shifted. People 00:01:36.450 --> 00:01:39.250 knew that magic Internet money could make you 00:01:39.250 --> 00:01:41.489 rich, but they had absolutely no idea how it 00:01:41.489 --> 00:01:44.290 worked. Precisely. And into that gap, that gap 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:47.010 between I want to get rich and I don't understand 00:01:47.010 --> 00:01:50.090 how blockchains work, step Dr. Ruja Ignatova. 00:01:50.250 --> 00:01:52.609 The crypto queen herself. And we have to spend 00:01:52.609 --> 00:01:54.810 a second on her because she was not your typical 00:01:54.810 --> 00:01:56.569 scammer. No, not at all. She wasn't some kid 00:01:56.569 --> 00:01:58.310 in a basement with a hoodie. She had the credentials. 00:01:58.870 --> 00:02:01.709 Oxford educated, a stint at McKinsey. She showed 00:02:01.709 --> 00:02:03.989 up in ball gowns and diamonds. She looked like 00:02:03.989 --> 00:02:06.560 the CEO of the future. She projected ultimate 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:09.979 competence and she was flanked by this guy, Sebastian 00:02:09.979 --> 00:02:12.060 Greenwood, who we will discuss a lot today. He 00:02:12.060 --> 00:02:15.879 was the engine, the the master distributor. So 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:19.219 they launched this thing in late 2014. And while 00:02:19.219 --> 00:02:21.759 it feels like a decade ago, the fallout is still 00:02:21.759 --> 00:02:23.740 raining down on people right now. Oh, yeah. We 00:02:23.740 --> 00:02:26.460 are talking about court cases and sentencing 00:02:26.460 --> 00:02:30.759 happening in 2024 and even into 2025. This isn't 00:02:30.759 --> 00:02:33.419 a history lesson. It's a current event. It's 00:02:33.419 --> 00:02:36.389 still unfolding. So here is the mission for today. 00:02:36.669 --> 00:02:39.229 We have a massive stack of documents. We're talking 00:02:39.229 --> 00:02:41.909 court filings, FBI warrants, investigative reports 00:02:41.909 --> 00:02:44.650 from journalists. We're going to unpack how a 00:02:44.650 --> 00:02:47.849 centralized pyramid scheme managed to masquerade 00:02:47.849 --> 00:02:51.030 as a decentralized technological revolution for 00:02:51.030 --> 00:02:53.349 years. And we need to explain the mechanics of 00:02:53.349 --> 00:02:55.650 the lie because it is surprisingly technical 00:02:55.650 --> 00:02:58.979 on the surface. And yet. It's shockingly simple 00:02:58.979 --> 00:03:00.780 when you pull back the curtain. And we need to 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:02.639 answer the big questions. Where did all that 00:03:02.639 --> 00:03:05.599 money go? And where in the world is Ruha Ignatova? 00:03:05.699 --> 00:03:07.939 The billion dollar question or five million dollar 00:03:07.939 --> 00:03:10.719 question now, I guess. Exactly. I promise you 00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:13.840 by the end of this, you are going to have a massive 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:18.120 aha moment about the difference between. a real 00:03:18.120 --> 00:03:22.159 blockchain, and what OneCoin actually used. Spoiler 00:03:22.159 --> 00:03:25.060 alert. If your blockchain can be edited by a 00:03:25.060 --> 00:03:27.580 guy named Steve in an office park, it's not a 00:03:27.580 --> 00:03:29.900 blockchain. It definitely involves a lot less 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:32.759 cryptography and a lot more just typing numbers 00:03:32.759 --> 00:03:35.819 into a SQL database. So let's get into it. Segment 00:03:35.819 --> 00:03:39.219 one, the product that wasn't. Because in any 00:03:39.219 --> 00:03:41.360 business, even a fraudulent one, you have to 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:43.419 sell something. Right. You can't just ask for 00:03:43.419 --> 00:03:45.340 money for nothing. Well, you can, but that's 00:03:45.340 --> 00:03:47.159 just begging. To make it a business, you need 00:03:47.159 --> 00:03:49.740 a product. And OneCoin's legal structure was 00:03:49.740 --> 00:03:52.159 actually, I have to say, it was quite clever 00:03:52.159 --> 00:03:54.939 in a devious way. Okay. They explicitly claimed 00:03:54.939 --> 00:03:57.039 they were not selling cryptocurrency. Which sounds 00:03:57.039 --> 00:03:59.719 insane for a company called OneCoin. It does. 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:02.620 But legally, if you sell a currency or a security, 00:04:02.819 --> 00:04:05.979 that requires licenses, audits, and intense scrutiny 00:04:05.979 --> 00:04:09.219 from regulators. So, OneCoin marketed itself 00:04:09.219 --> 00:04:12.379 as a company selling Educational material. Financial 00:04:12.379 --> 00:04:14.340 education. Exactly. They were in the business 00:04:14.340 --> 00:04:16.819 of knowledge. Okay, I've seen some of these materials 00:04:16.819 --> 00:04:18.839 in our research stack. They called them educational 00:04:18.839 --> 00:04:22.040 packages. And they had these grand names like 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:25.379 Tycoon Trader or Infinity Trader. Yeah, they 00:04:25.379 --> 00:04:28.439 sounded very impressive. And the pricing structure 00:04:28.439 --> 00:04:31.240 was designed to catch whales. It was a classic 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:33.620 funnel. How did that work? The packages start 00:04:33.620 --> 00:04:35.920 small, around 100 euros, which is accessible 00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:38.100 for almost anyone who's curious. It's a low barrier 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:40.740 to entry. Get them in the door. Exactly. But 00:04:40.740 --> 00:04:43.939 they scaled up aggressively. You could buy packages 00:04:43.939 --> 00:04:48.139 for 5 ,000 euros, 10 ,000, 27 ,000 euros. And 00:04:48.139 --> 00:04:50.329 it went even higher. I'm looking at sources here 00:04:50.329 --> 00:04:52.529 that show the top tier packages, sometimes they 00:04:52.529 --> 00:04:55.769 bundle them together, reaching 118 ,000 euros. 00:04:56.069 --> 00:04:58.269 And some reports I've seen indicate there were 00:04:58.269 --> 00:05:01.209 special promotional packages that could hit 225 00:05:01.209 --> 00:05:06.389 ,500 euros. 225 ,000 euros. Let's just pause 00:05:06.389 --> 00:05:08.769 on that. That is a house in many parts of the 00:05:08.769 --> 00:05:11.029 world that is a Ferrari. It's life -changing 00:05:11.029 --> 00:05:13.370 money. It's someone's entire retirement savings. 00:05:13.509 --> 00:05:15.889 And in exchange for that, you are receiving... 00:05:16.250 --> 00:05:18.949 PDF files. Ostensibly, yes. You are paying for 00:05:18.949 --> 00:05:20.470 the knowledge. You are investing in yourself. 00:05:20.810 --> 00:05:24.189 So for the price of a Harvard MBA, surely this 00:05:24.189 --> 00:05:26.509 content was groundbreaking. Was it proprietary 00:05:26.509 --> 00:05:29.810 trading algorithms, insider secrets from, I don't 00:05:29.810 --> 00:05:31.970 know, the Wolf of Wall Street? This is the first 00:05:31.970 --> 00:05:35.329 big aha moment of the scam. And it's almost funny 00:05:35.329 --> 00:05:39.610 if it weren't so tragic. When investors and later 00:05:39.610 --> 00:05:42.769 investigators actually opened these files, they 00:05:42.769 --> 00:05:45.459 found something laughable. The content was. Right. 00:05:45.579 --> 00:05:47.920 It was generic. It was basic explanations of 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:50.300 economic theory. Stuff you could get in an econ 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:53.300 101 textbook. And not even original basic explanations. 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:55.899 No, this is the best part. Lawsuits filed by 00:05:55.899 --> 00:05:58.439 former investors revealed that huge swaths of 00:05:58.439 --> 00:06:01.610 the text were just plagiarized. From where? We 00:06:01.610 --> 00:06:03.550 are talking copy -paste jobs from free sources 00:06:03.550 --> 00:06:06.009 available all over the internet. Including Wikipedia. 00:06:06.310 --> 00:06:08.750 I saw that in the filings. Can you imagine? You 00:06:08.750 --> 00:06:10.790 mortgage your house to buy the tycoon package, 00:06:10.949 --> 00:06:13.230 you open the first module all excited, and you 00:06:13.230 --> 00:06:15.230 realize you could have just googled what is inflation 00:06:15.230 --> 00:06:18.870 and gotten the exact same text for free. It's 00:06:18.870 --> 00:06:22.170 just, it's so tragic. But it speaks to the fact 00:06:22.170 --> 00:06:24.569 that the product was never the point. The education 00:06:24.569 --> 00:06:27.930 was what they call a MacGuffin. in film. It was 00:06:27.930 --> 00:06:29.990 just the object that allowed the money to change 00:06:29.990 --> 00:06:32.959 hands legally. So what was the real hook? The 00:06:32.959 --> 00:06:35.300 real hook, the reason anyone paid 100 ,000 euros 00:06:35.300 --> 00:06:38.399 for a Wikipedia article, was the tokens. Right. 00:06:38.459 --> 00:06:40.160 Because when you bought the education, you got 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.579 these free tokens as a bonus. Yes. And the pitch 00:06:43.579 --> 00:06:45.959 was that these tokens were the raw material used 00:06:45.959 --> 00:06:49.160 to mine one kind. They're co -opting the language 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:52.040 of Bitcoin here. Completely. In Bitcoin, as you 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:54.740 know, mining is this competitive, energy -intensive 00:06:54.740 --> 00:06:58.120 process where computers solve complex math problems 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:01.259 to secure the network and create new coins. It's 00:07:01.259 --> 00:07:03.740 real work. It's difficult. It is. So one coin 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:05.980 told its users, you don't need to buy expensive 00:07:05.980 --> 00:07:08.800 hardware. You don't need to be a coder. Just 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:10.899 give us your tokens and we will mine the coins 00:07:10.899 --> 00:07:13.240 for you on our powerful servers. It's mining 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:16.100 as a service, a hands -off approach. In theory. 00:07:16.339 --> 00:07:18.740 But in reality, it was a simulation, a complete 00:07:18.740 --> 00:07:21.180 fiction. This is the part that feels like a video 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:24.120 game to me. You know, in a mobile game, you tap 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:26.579 a button to build a castle and a little timer 00:07:26.579 --> 00:07:29.730 appears that says building. four hours left and 00:07:29.730 --> 00:07:32.509 then four hours later ding you have a castle 00:07:32.509 --> 00:07:34.889 but you didn't build anything a line of code 00:07:34.889 --> 00:07:37.689 just changed a zio to a one in a database that 00:07:37.689 --> 00:07:40.129 is a perfect analogy it's exactly what happened 00:07:40.129 --> 00:07:43.050 investors would log into their one coin back 00:07:43.050 --> 00:07:45.769 office which by all accounts was a very slick 00:07:45.769 --> 00:07:48.129 looking website and they would see a dashboard 00:07:48.129 --> 00:07:51.069 right they would click mine and a progress bar 00:07:51.069 --> 00:07:52.930 would start chugging along they would watch it 00:07:52.930 --> 00:07:55.209 for days or weeks and then the numbers in their 00:07:55.209 --> 00:07:57.810 one coin account would go up They felt like they 00:07:57.810 --> 00:07:59.550 had accomplished work. They felt like they were 00:07:59.550 --> 00:08:01.850 part of the digital revolution. Look, I'm mining. 00:08:01.990 --> 00:08:04.370 But what was actually happening on the back end? 00:08:04.430 --> 00:08:06.990 Was there anything? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 00:08:07.129 --> 00:08:09.430 There were no mining servers. There were no complex 00:08:09.430 --> 00:08:12.490 cryptographic puzzles being solved. The company 00:08:12.490 --> 00:08:14.709 claimed to have these massive mining farms in 00:08:14.709 --> 00:08:17.949 Bulgaria and Hong Kong. But investigators found 00:08:17.949 --> 00:08:20.459 that these were ghosts. So what was it? It was 00:08:20.459 --> 00:08:23.120 just a standard SQL database. OK, for the listeners 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:25.360 who aren't tech heavy, let's really distinguish 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:28.639 between a SQL database and a blockchain, because 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:31.040 this is the absolute crux of the lie. Right. 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:33.519 It's the most important distinction. A blockchain, 00:08:33.779 --> 00:08:37.039 like bitcoins, is a decentralized ledger. It 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:38.899 lives on thousands of computers. We call them 00:08:38.899 --> 00:08:42.100 nodes all over the world. No single person or 00:08:42.100 --> 00:08:44.539 company controls it. So if I wanted to cheat 00:08:44.539 --> 00:08:46.860 the system. If you wanted to change a record, 00:08:47.019 --> 00:08:49.519 say you want to give yourself a million Bitcoin 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:52.899 out of thin air, you would have to convince more 00:08:52.899 --> 00:08:56.700 than half, 51 % of the entire global network 00:08:56.700 --> 00:09:00.740 to agree with your lie. Which is? It's computationally 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:02.259 and economically impossible. It's what makes 00:09:02.259 --> 00:09:04.720 it secure. A transaction is immutable. Once it's 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:06.820 written, it's written forever. Okay, so that's 00:09:06.820 --> 00:09:09.240 a blockchain. What's a SQL database? A SQL database, 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:11.179 on the other hand, is what your local library 00:09:11.179 --> 00:09:14.480 uses to track overdue books. It's what a standard 00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:16.899 corporate website uses for its user accounts. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:19.200 It lives on a private server. And someone has 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:21.659 the password. Exactly. And if you have the admin 00:09:21.659 --> 00:09:23.299 password, you can go in and change anything you 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:26.179 want, whenever you want. So Ruja Ignatova and 00:09:26.179 --> 00:09:29.059 her team had the admin password to the money. 00:09:29.279 --> 00:09:32.659 They did. OneCoin wasn't a cryptocurrency. It 00:09:32.659 --> 00:09:35.799 was a loyalty points program hosted on a private 00:09:35.799 --> 00:09:39.480 server in an office in Bulgaria. They could issue 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:41.580 as many coins as they wanted. They could freeze 00:09:41.580 --> 00:09:44.360 accounts. They could revert transactions. They 00:09:44.360 --> 00:09:46.399 had total control. And they did. They controlled 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:48.720 the supply completely. Which meant they could 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:51.899 rig the price. In a real market, like for Bitcoin 00:09:51.899 --> 00:09:54.340 or stocks, the price is determined by supply 00:09:54.340 --> 00:09:56.500 and demand from millions of buyers and sellers. 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.159 Right. In one coin, the price went up because 00:09:59.159 --> 00:10:01.990 Arusha said it went up. leaked internal documents 00:10:01.990 --> 00:10:04.990 show they would hold meetings and literally decide, 00:10:05.090 --> 00:10:07.629 okay, next week the price of one coin goes from 00:10:07.629 --> 00:10:10.549 five euros to six euros. And the users log in, 00:10:10.570 --> 00:10:12.289 they see the graph on their dashboard go up and 00:10:12.289 --> 00:10:13.909 to the right, and they think, wow, I'm a genius 00:10:13.909 --> 00:10:16.870 investor. Exactly. It creates this powerful feedback 00:10:16.870 --> 00:10:19.570 loop of euphoria. You see your account value 00:10:19.570 --> 00:10:22.450 doubling. then tripling on paper, why would you 00:10:22.450 --> 00:10:24.009 question the technicals when you feel like you're 00:10:24.009 --> 00:10:26.490 getting rich? That leads us perfectly into the 00:10:26.490 --> 00:10:28.870 structure of the scam because we call it a scam, 00:10:29.070 --> 00:10:31.629 but experts usually debate between two specific 00:10:31.629 --> 00:10:35.190 terms, Ponzi and pyramid. Right. And one coin 00:10:35.190 --> 00:10:38.789 was this weird Frankenstein's monster of both. 00:10:38.950 --> 00:10:41.409 It was a hybrid for sure. And understanding the 00:10:41.409 --> 00:10:44.690 difference helps explain why it grew so big so 00:10:44.690 --> 00:10:46.950 fast. Okay, let's unpack the definitions for 00:10:46.950 --> 00:10:49.740 everyone. Let's start with Ponzi. A Ponzi scheme, 00:10:49.960 --> 00:10:53.200 named after Charles Ponzi of course, is fundamentally 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:56.220 an investment fraud. You take money from new 00:10:56.220 --> 00:10:59.580 investors and you use it to pay returns to earlier 00:10:59.580 --> 00:11:02.909 investors. There's no actual profit being generated 00:11:02.909 --> 00:11:04.929 from a business. You're just robbing Peter to 00:11:04.929 --> 00:11:06.690 pay Paul. The Bernie Madoff special, exactly. 00:11:07.190 --> 00:11:09.649 OneCoin had elements of this. They needed a constant 00:11:09.649 --> 00:11:12.830 flow of fresh capital to keep the lights on and, 00:11:12.950 --> 00:11:15.210 crucially, to allow the very few people who are 00:11:15.210 --> 00:11:17.970 actually cashing out to do so. But a pure Ponzi 00:11:17.970 --> 00:11:19.850 usually collapses when the flow of new money 00:11:19.850 --> 00:11:21.809 slows down, right? It does. And that's where 00:11:21.809 --> 00:11:23.549 the pyramid scheme structure comes in. Okay, 00:11:23.610 --> 00:11:25.889 so what's a pyramid? A pyramid scheme is defined 00:11:25.889 --> 00:11:28.990 by recruitment. The primary way you make money 00:11:28.990 --> 00:11:31.210 isn't by selling the product, because remember, 00:11:31.330 --> 00:11:34.230 the product here is a plagiarized PDF, but by 00:11:34.230 --> 00:11:36.769 recruiting other people to sell the product. 00:11:36.909 --> 00:11:38.350 Hang on. Do you want to be your own boss and 00:11:38.350 --> 00:11:41.269 work from your phone? It's that. But on a global 00:11:41.269 --> 00:11:44.470 billion -dollar scale, OneCoin was a recruiting 00:11:44.470 --> 00:11:48.029 machine. They used a classic multi -level marketing 00:11:48.029 --> 00:11:51.129 or MLM structure. If you brought someone new 00:11:51.129 --> 00:11:53.529 in, you got a commission on the package they 00:11:53.529 --> 00:11:55.149 bought. And if they brought someone in? You got 00:11:55.149 --> 00:11:57.720 a piece of that, too. And so on down the line. 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:00.679 It creates this massive incentive to evangelize. 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:02.980 And this is where the rallies come in. We've 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:04.840 all seen the footage. It's incredible. We're 00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:07.500 talking Wembley Arena in London, huge arenas 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:10.340 in Bangkok and Macau. These weren't boring financial 00:12:10.340 --> 00:12:12.960 seminars. No, these were rock concerts. There's 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.740 fire, lasers, pumping music. Ruja comes out in 00:12:16.740 --> 00:12:19.519 a silk ball gown. And notice the focus of those 00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:21.899 meetings. They barely mentioned the educational 00:12:21.899 --> 00:12:25.360 packages. No one was on stage saying, check out 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:27.679 this great chapter on supply and demand economics. 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:31.200 They were screaming about the coin, the price, 00:12:31.340 --> 00:12:34.179 the Bitcoin killer. They were selling the dream. 00:12:34.419 --> 00:12:37.159 And leading that charge, whipping up that frenzy, 00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:40.620 was Sebastian Greenwood. We mentioned him earlier, 00:12:40.779 --> 00:12:42.779 but we need to look at his incentives. He was 00:12:42.779 --> 00:12:44.759 the global master distributor. What does that 00:12:44.759 --> 00:12:46.820 actually mean in terms of money? It means he 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:49.700 was at the absolute apex of the pyramid. The 00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:52.480 compensation plan was incredibly lucrative for 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:55.080 those at the top. Greenwood took a percentage 00:12:55.080 --> 00:12:58.580 of the entire network's sales. The entire global 00:12:58.580 --> 00:13:01.240 network? Yes. Some estimates suggest he was taking 00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:04.220 up to 5 % of the global volume in one capacity 00:13:04.220 --> 00:13:07.639 or another. 5 % of $4 billion. It's an obscene 00:13:07.639 --> 00:13:10.500 amount of money. Personally, investigations suggest 00:13:10.500 --> 00:13:14.360 he made over 300 million U .S. dollars. 300 million. 00:13:14.500 --> 00:13:16.700 And he didn't exactly bury it in the backyard, 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:19.320 did he? No. Part of the calm is looking the part. 00:13:19.519 --> 00:13:22.259 If you are selling the future of money, you have 00:13:22.259 --> 00:13:24.980 to look like you own the future. Greenwood spent 00:13:24.980 --> 00:13:27.740 lavishly. What did he buy? International real 00:13:27.740 --> 00:13:30.399 estate apartments in Dubai, properties in Thailand, 00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:34.409 a place in London, luxury clothing. He had a 00:13:34.409 --> 00:13:36.370 collection of high -end watches that would make 00:13:36.370 --> 00:13:39.009 a professional collector weep. And the boat. 00:13:39.129 --> 00:13:41.389 We have to talk about the boat. The Sunseeker 00:13:41.389 --> 00:13:44.809 yacht. He put a down payment of 6 .5 million 00:13:44.809 --> 00:13:48.629 Swedish krona on it. You know, there's a specific 00:13:48.629 --> 00:13:52.149 kind of hubris to buying a super yacht with money 00:13:52.149 --> 00:13:53.889 stolen from people who are just trying to save 00:13:53.889 --> 00:13:55.809 for their kids' education or their own retirement. 00:13:56.070 --> 00:13:57.950 It really paints the picture of who these people 00:13:57.950 --> 00:14:00.929 were. They weren't deluded idealists who got 00:14:00.929 --> 00:14:03.669 in over their heads. They were looters. Absolutely. 00:14:04.090 --> 00:14:06.789 And while Greenwood was buying yachts, the investors 00:14:06.789 --> 00:14:09.409 were facing a very different reality. This is 00:14:09.409 --> 00:14:12.029 the part that always confuses people. If my account 00:14:12.029 --> 00:14:14.450 says I have a million dollars in OneCoin, why 00:14:14.450 --> 00:14:17.129 can't I just withdraw it? Right. The Hotel California 00:14:17.129 --> 00:14:19.230 problem. Yeah. You can check out anytime you 00:14:19.230 --> 00:14:21.230 like, but you can never leave. So how did they 00:14:21.230 --> 00:14:23.210 trap the money? This was managed through the 00:14:23.210 --> 00:14:26.450 OneCoin exchange, which was called Xcoins. This 00:14:26.450 --> 00:14:29.370 was an internal marketplace. Internal only. Yes. 00:14:29.629 --> 00:14:31.710 You couldn't take your one coin and sell it on 00:14:31.710 --> 00:14:34.450 a real exchange like Coinbase or Binance because, 00:14:34.529 --> 00:14:36.889 again, it wasn't a real crypto. It didn't exist 00:14:36.889 --> 00:14:40.309 outside their server. So you had to sell it back 00:14:40.309 --> 00:14:42.470 to other users on their exchange. And they controlled 00:14:42.470 --> 00:14:45.850 the rules of that exchange. Brutally. They had 00:14:45.850 --> 00:14:48.090 selling limits. For example, if you bought the 00:14:48.090 --> 00:14:50.629 basic starter package, maybe you were only allowed 00:14:50.629 --> 00:14:53.649 to sell 12 euros worth of coins per day. So even 00:14:53.649 --> 00:14:56.190 if you're a millionaire on screen, you can only 00:14:56.190 --> 00:14:58.929 get lunch money out. Exactly. They drip fed the 00:14:58.929 --> 00:15:01.850 liquidity to prevent a collapse. And then whenever 00:15:01.850 --> 00:15:03.690 the selling pressure from the community got too 00:15:03.690 --> 00:15:06.669 high, they would just pull the plug. The maintenance 00:15:06.669 --> 00:15:10.840 excuse. A classic. On March 1st, 2016, suddenly 00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:13.580 the exchange closes. The official notice says 00:15:13.580 --> 00:15:16.179 it will be closed for two weeks for maintenance 00:15:16.179 --> 00:15:19.480 and better integration with the blockchain. Which 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:21.299 we now know is a complete lie because there was 00:15:21.299 --> 00:15:24.399 no blockchain to integrate with. Precisely. But 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:26.200 it bought them two weeks where no money could 00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:28.940 leave the building. Meanwhile, money was still 00:15:28.940 --> 00:15:31.039 coming in from new recruits buying packages. 00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:32.879 And they did it again later, right? It wasn't 00:15:32.879 --> 00:15:36.899 a one -time thing. Oh yeah. January 2017. The 00:15:36.899 --> 00:15:40.019 exchange shuts down again, this time for good. 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:43.019 But they had a brilliant excuse. What was it 00:15:43.019 --> 00:15:45.399 this time? They claimed they were preparing for 00:15:45.399 --> 00:15:48.659 an IPO, an initial public offering. They were 00:15:48.659 --> 00:15:50.899 going to take the company public in 2018. So 00:15:50.899 --> 00:15:53.259 they told everyone. They told everyone, don't 00:15:53.259 --> 00:15:55.240 sell your coins now. That's a terrible idea. 00:15:55.759 --> 00:15:58.379 Convert your coins into OFC certificates for 00:15:58.379 --> 00:16:00.519 shares in the future company. You'll be even 00:16:00.519 --> 00:16:02.539 richer when we're on the stock market. That is 00:16:02.539 --> 00:16:06.029 genius in a truly evil way. I can't give you 00:16:06.029 --> 00:16:07.769 your money back, but I can give you this other 00:16:07.769 --> 00:16:09.850 piece of paper that promises you more money later. 00:16:10.009 --> 00:16:13.250 It completely prevented a bank run. If everyone 00:16:13.250 --> 00:16:15.129 tries to cash out at once, the Ponzi collapses 00:16:15.129 --> 00:16:18.250 instantly by locking people in and dazzling them 00:16:18.250 --> 00:16:21.070 with future promises of a huge IPO. Russia and 00:16:21.070 --> 00:16:23.610 Greenwood bought themselves another year to siphon 00:16:23.610 --> 00:16:26.070 off the real cash, the euros, dollars and yuan 00:16:26.070 --> 00:16:28.629 into their labyrinth of offshore accounts. It 00:16:28.629 --> 00:16:31.230 creates this artificial scarcity and keeps the 00:16:31.230 --> 00:16:34.470 hope alive. But surely with an operation this 00:16:34.470 --> 00:16:36.629 massive operating in almost every country on 00:16:36.629 --> 00:16:39.870 Earth, the regulators weren't blind. I mean, 00:16:39.909 --> 00:16:41.909 four billion dollars doesn't just move through 00:16:41.909 --> 00:16:44.490 the banking system unnoticed. It didn't go unnoticed 00:16:44.490 --> 00:16:46.970 at all. And that's the real tragedy here. The 00:16:46.970 --> 00:16:48.850 warnings were loud and they started surprisingly 00:16:48.850 --> 00:16:51.269 early. This wasn't the case where the government 00:16:51.269 --> 00:16:54.049 woke up in 2017 and said, whoops, we missed one. 00:16:54.169 --> 00:16:56.549 They were screaming about it. Let's look at that 00:16:56.549 --> 00:16:58.470 timeline of suspicion. This is segment three 00:16:58.470 --> 00:17:00.669 because it starts right in their own backyard. 00:17:01.070 --> 00:17:05.789 Bulgaria, September 2015. OneCoin is barely a 00:17:05.789 --> 00:17:08.269 year old at this point. The Bulgarian Financial 00:17:08.269 --> 00:17:10.650 Supervision Commission issues a public warning 00:17:10.650 --> 00:17:13.609 explicitly citing OneCoin. What did it say? They 00:17:13.609 --> 00:17:15.970 effectively said this is a risky new asset. It 00:17:15.970 --> 00:17:18.349 isn't regulated. Be careful. It was a clear red 00:17:18.349 --> 00:17:20.930 flag. And how did OneCoin respond to this? Did 00:17:20.930 --> 00:17:23.549 they hire lawyers? Did they try to comply? They 00:17:23.549 --> 00:17:26.279 just moved. They ceased their main activities 00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:29.160 in Bulgaria and started moving their bank accounts 00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:31.579 to foreign jurisdictions. They played a game 00:17:31.579 --> 00:17:34.279 of jurisdictional whack -a -mole. If one country 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:36.240 got suspicious, they'd just open accounts in 00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:39.180 another. And then 2016 comes around and the dam 00:17:39.180 --> 00:17:41.839 really starts to break. It really was a global 00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:45.700 chorus of warnings. In February 2016, the Daily 00:17:45.700 --> 00:17:49.599 Mirror in the UK ran a big investigation. And 00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:51.700 they didn't use soft language. No, I read that 00:17:51.700 --> 00:17:54.319 one. They called it virtually worthless. And 00:17:54.319 --> 00:17:56.900 interestingly, they described the community as 00:17:56.900 --> 00:18:00.200 a cult. That word cult matters. Because when 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:02.660 you looked at the OneCoin believers, the OneLife 00:18:02.660 --> 00:18:05.000 Network, they call themselves, they defended 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:08.880 Ruja with religious fervor. Absolutely. If you 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.500 criticize the coin, you are a hater. You didn't 00:18:11.500 --> 00:18:13.000 get it. You were part of the old system that 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:14.799 was trying to hold them down. That's the classic 00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:17.079 defense mechanism of the pyramid. If the outside 00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:19.240 world is the enemy, you only trust the leader. 00:18:19.460 --> 00:18:24.089 But the warnings kept coming. March 2016, Norway's 00:18:24.089 --> 00:18:26.470 direct selling association flat out calls it 00:18:26.470 --> 00:18:30.750 a pyramid scheme. Then December 2016, Italy's 00:18:30.750 --> 00:18:33.670 antitrust authority issues an interim injunction 00:18:33.670 --> 00:18:36.630 and then later bans it completely. So Italy actually 00:18:36.630 --> 00:18:38.630 shut it down within their borders. They did. 00:18:38.869 --> 00:18:40.930 And then there's China. We have to talk about 00:18:40.930 --> 00:18:43.289 China. China is a massive market for these kinds 00:18:43.289 --> 00:18:45.329 of schemes because of the gambling culture and 00:18:45.329 --> 00:18:47.430 the strong desire to move money out of the country. 00:18:47.569 --> 00:18:49.710 But the Chinese authorities do not mess around. 00:18:49.869 --> 00:18:52.609 No. In 2016, they started prosecuting members 00:18:52.609 --> 00:18:55.009 and seizing assets. How much did they get? 30 00:18:55.009 --> 00:18:58.150 .8 million U .S. dollars seized in one go. In 00:18:58.150 --> 00:19:00.349 total, over the course of their prosecutions, 00:19:00.470 --> 00:19:03.109 they recovered something like 1 .7 billion yuan. 00:19:03.690 --> 00:19:05.829 That's hundreds of millions of dollars. So by 00:19:05.829 --> 00:19:08.369 the end of 2016, you have public warnings in 00:19:08.369 --> 00:19:11.529 Bulgaria, investigations in the U .K., a pyramid 00:19:11.529 --> 00:19:14.130 scheme designation in Norway, a ban in Italy 00:19:14.130 --> 00:19:16.630 and mass arrests in China. Right. And yet the 00:19:16.630 --> 00:19:18.829 money kept flowing in from other places. Why? 00:19:19.339 --> 00:19:21.900 Because of the narrative. OneCoin told their 00:19:21.900 --> 00:19:24.559 followers that the governments were scared. The 00:19:24.559 --> 00:19:26.480 banks are fighting us because we are the future. 00:19:26.619 --> 00:19:28.880 They are trying to stop the revolution. Every 00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:31.880 warning, every arrest was spun as proof that 00:19:31.880 --> 00:19:34.119 OneCoin was a genuine threat to the establishment. 00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:37.779 That is some twisted, brilliant logic. But then 00:19:37.779 --> 00:19:41.559 we get to the Vietnam story in 2017. And this, 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:43.920 to me, is the moment where the sophisticated 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:47.740 businesswoman mask slips and you see the desperate 00:19:47.740 --> 00:19:50.779 criminal underneath. This is the Vietnam forgery 00:19:50.779 --> 00:19:53.000 scandal. It's so clumsy. OneCoin desperately 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:55.319 needed a win. They needed to show they had some 00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:58.079 kind of government legitimacy. So Rouge's team 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:00.380 announced that OneCoin had been officially licensed 00:20:00.380 --> 00:20:02.700 by the Vietnamese government. And not just licensed, 00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:05.440 but as the first legal crypto in all of Asia. 00:20:05.579 --> 00:20:08.259 A huge claim. They posted photos online of the 00:20:08.259 --> 00:20:10.140 official document. It had the government seal, 00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:12.259 the signature, everything. Looked legit. It looked 00:20:12.259 --> 00:20:15.019 official to the untrained eye. But the Vietnamese 00:20:15.019 --> 00:20:17.910 government reacted with incredible speed. The 00:20:17.910 --> 00:20:19.630 Ministry of Planning and Investment issued a 00:20:19.630 --> 00:20:22.069 statement just four days later. They said flatly, 00:20:22.069 --> 00:20:24.789 we never signed this. This document is a forgery. 00:20:24.970 --> 00:20:26.769 And didn't they find out the signature itself 00:20:26.769 --> 00:20:30.609 was impossible? Yes. This is the best part. The 00:20:30.609 --> 00:20:33.369 official whose signature was supposedly on the 00:20:33.369 --> 00:20:36.460 document. wasn't even in that position on the 00:20:36.460 --> 00:20:38.559 date the document was supposedly signed. So it's 00:20:38.559 --> 00:20:41.960 just a clumsy Photoshop job? A terrible one. 00:20:42.059 --> 00:20:45.259 It reeks of desperation. That's not a 4D chess 00:20:45.259 --> 00:20:48.220 move by a genius. That's a panic move. The walls 00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:51.160 were closing in? They were. Around the same time 00:20:51.160 --> 00:20:53.039 in India, the police actually went undercover. 00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:56.039 They attended a big recruitment seminar in Navi, 00:20:56.039 --> 00:20:58.759 Mumbai. I love this detail. Just imagining the 00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:00.819 police sitting in the audience, clapping along 00:21:00.819 --> 00:21:02.759 with everyone else, taking notes on who the main 00:21:02.759 --> 00:21:05.279 promoters are. And then, after gathering the 00:21:05.279 --> 00:21:07.460 evidence, they raided the event. They arrested 00:21:07.460 --> 00:21:10.660 the leaders and seized millions in rupees. But, 00:21:11.160 --> 00:21:13.299 and this is the recurring theme of the OneCoin 00:21:13.299 --> 00:21:15.799 story, when they went to freeze the main bank 00:21:15.799 --> 00:21:18.750 accounts, most of the money was gone. Ten million 00:21:18.750 --> 00:21:21.130 U .S. dollars had been transferred out just moments 00:21:21.130 --> 00:21:23.589 before the seizure. Someone had a tip -off. Or 00:21:23.589 --> 00:21:26.410 they were just moving money so fast, constantly, 00:21:26.470 --> 00:21:28.809 that the law couldn't keep up. It was a global 00:21:28.809 --> 00:21:31.390 money laundering operation on an industrial scale. 00:21:31.890 --> 00:21:34.690 They were using shell companies, banks, and tax 00:21:34.690 --> 00:21:37.069 havens, layers and layers of obfuscation to stay 00:21:37.069 --> 00:21:39.289 one step ahead. Which brings us to the climax, 00:21:39.630 --> 00:21:43.200 segment four, the disappearance. Because you 00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:45.740 can only run a scam for so long before either 00:21:45.740 --> 00:21:48.700 the math breaks or the handcuffs click. And late 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:51.640 2017 is the turning point. The U .S. justice 00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:54.240 system had been quietly building a massive case. 00:21:54.500 --> 00:21:57.660 They had filed a secret warrant for Russia Ignatova's 00:21:57.660 --> 00:21:59.640 arrest. Do we think she knew about the warrant? 00:22:00.059 --> 00:22:02.880 Almost certainly. Whether she had a mole inside 00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:05.180 law enforcement or just sensed the heat was getting 00:22:05.180 --> 00:22:09.170 too intense, she ran. On October 25, 2017, she 00:22:09.170 --> 00:22:11.470 boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia, Bulgaria 00:22:11.470 --> 00:22:14.809 to Athens, Greece. Ryanair. It's such a mundane 00:22:14.809 --> 00:22:17.349 detail. The woman who stole billions of dollars 00:22:17.349 --> 00:22:19.589 flying a budget airline for her escape. It's 00:22:19.589 --> 00:22:21.230 the last time she was confirmed to be seen in 00:22:21.230 --> 00:22:24.630 public. She landed in Athens and then nothing. 00:22:24.950 --> 00:22:27.109 The trail goes cold. But she left her family 00:22:27.109 --> 00:22:30.309 behind to face the music. Her brother, Konstantin 00:22:30.309 --> 00:22:33.349 Ignatov. Konstantin. He's a tragic figure in 00:22:33.349 --> 00:22:35.089 his own way. He was always seen as the party 00:22:35.089 --> 00:22:37.900 brother. He wasn't the mastermind. Not the brains 00:22:37.900 --> 00:22:40.119 of the operation. No, he was the guy with the 00:22:40.119 --> 00:22:43.480 tattoos and the gym membership. But when Ruja 00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:46.900 vanished, he stepped up. He became the new face 00:22:46.900 --> 00:22:49.519 of OneCoin. He took the captain's chair on the 00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:51.960 Titanic right after it hit the iceberg. That's 00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:54.799 a perfect description. He continued the lies. 00:22:55.079 --> 00:22:57.960 He kept telling investors, Ruja is working on 00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:00.400 big things in the background. The IPO is still 00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:03.740 coming. But he lacked her polish. And more importantly, 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:08.319 He lacked her escape plan. The raid in 2018 in 00:23:08.319 --> 00:23:10.900 Sofia must have been the reality check for everyone. 00:23:11.200 --> 00:23:14.539 It was. German prosecutors working with Bulgarian 00:23:14.539 --> 00:23:17.119 police stormed the OneCoin headquarters. They 00:23:17.119 --> 00:23:19.839 seized servers, documents, everything. This was 00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:21.779 the moment the tech was physically dismantled. 00:23:21.819 --> 00:23:24.700 But Konstantin kept touring. He even came to 00:23:24.700 --> 00:23:27.700 the U .S. Which was a fatal mistake. In March 00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:30.500 2019, he was at Los Angeles International Airport, 00:23:30.779 --> 00:23:33.759 LAX, getting ready to fly out, and the FBI was 00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:35.980 waiting for him at the gate. Wow. Imagine that 00:23:35.980 --> 00:23:38.099 moment. You think you're a crypto mogul, you're 00:23:38.099 --> 00:23:39.880 about to board a flight, and suddenly you're 00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:42.380 in federal custody. And the dominoes fell very 00:23:42.380 --> 00:23:45.059 quickly after that. Constantine, facing decades 00:23:45.059 --> 00:23:47.980 in prison, flipped. He pleaded guilty in November 00:23:47.980 --> 00:23:51.099 2019. He started cooperating. He turned on the 00:23:51.099 --> 00:23:53.160 whole organization. He gave up details about 00:23:53.160 --> 00:23:55.200 Ruja, about the money laundering networks, everything. 00:23:55.400 --> 00:23:58.440 He's facing up to 90 years in prison, though 00:23:58.440 --> 00:24:01.200 his cooperation will likely reduce that sentence 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:04.019 significantly. And it wasn't just him. A scam 00:24:04.019 --> 00:24:06.640 this big needs professional help. Let's talk 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:09.039 about Mark Scott. Right. Mark Scott wasn't some 00:24:09.039 --> 00:24:12.160 street hustler. He was a partner at a major international 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:15.349 law firm. Lock Lord. Yeah. A very prestigious 00:24:15.349 --> 00:24:17.990 firm. Mark Scott was the guy who made the money 00:24:17.990 --> 00:24:20.589 disappear. He was the master launderer. How did 00:24:20.589 --> 00:24:22.930 he do it? He set up a series of fake private 00:24:22.930 --> 00:24:25.029 equity funds. They were called the Finnero funds 00:24:25.029 --> 00:24:27.609 in places like the British Virgin Islands. He 00:24:27.609 --> 00:24:30.930 took $400 million of one coin money and pretended 00:24:30.930 --> 00:24:33.410 it was investment capital from wealthy European 00:24:33.410 --> 00:24:36.390 families. He laundered nearly half a billion 00:24:36.390 --> 00:24:39.809 dollars and for his trouble. He reportedly made 00:24:39.809 --> 00:24:42.369 about $50 million in fees. And what did he do 00:24:42.369 --> 00:24:45.240 with it? He bought a yacht, of course, and several 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:48.259 high -end properties in Cape Cod. The greed is 00:24:48.259 --> 00:24:50.779 just universal in this story. He was found guilty 00:24:50.779 --> 00:24:53.759 by a jury in 2019. And then there's the co -founder, 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:56.339 Sebastian Greenwood, the man with the Sunseeker. 00:24:56.619 --> 00:24:59.160 He was hunted down, arrested in Thailand in July 00:24:59.160 --> 00:25:01.680 2018. He was living on a private island, I believe. 00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:04.599 Wow. They extradited him to the U .S. He held 00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:07.059 out for a while, maintained his innocence, but 00:25:07.059 --> 00:25:10.799 eventually pleaded guilty in December 2022. And 00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:13.559 the sentence was heavy. 20 years. He was sentenced 00:25:13.559 --> 00:25:17.200 in September 2023. He also had to forfeit billions 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:19.259 in assets, though collecting that money is a 00:25:19.259 --> 00:25:21.900 whole other story. And just recently, this year, 00:25:21.940 --> 00:25:24.500 the head of legal and compliance, Irina Dalkinska. 00:25:24.980 --> 00:25:28.380 The irony is just... It's too much. The head 00:25:28.380 --> 00:25:30.619 of compliance was actively laundering money for 00:25:30.619 --> 00:25:32.519 the company. She was extradited from Bulgaria 00:25:32.519 --> 00:25:35.279 in 2023 and was just sentenced to four years 00:25:35.279 --> 00:25:37.920 in prison in April of 2024. So let's recap the 00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:40.180 players. The brother is singing to the feds. 00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:42.920 The co -founder is doing 20 years. The big shot 00:25:42.920 --> 00:25:44.900 lawyer is found guilty. The compliance officer 00:25:44.900 --> 00:25:47.259 is in jail. The whole inner circle is dismantled. 00:25:47.339 --> 00:25:50.000 Except for the queen, Ruja. She is still the 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:52.500 ghost in the machine. Which brings us to today. 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:56.119 Segment five, the current state of affairs, because 00:25:56.119 --> 00:25:59.519 the story hasn't ended. Ruja Ignatova is currently 00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:02.059 one of the most wanted human beings on the planet. 00:26:02.279 --> 00:26:04.880 Literally, she is on the FBI's 10 most wanted 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:07.180 fugitives list. She's the only woman on there 00:26:07.180 --> 00:26:09.500 right now, I believe. She was added in June 2022. 00:26:09.900 --> 00:26:11.579 It's a very exclusive club you don't want to 00:26:11.579 --> 00:26:14.039 be in. And Europol has her on their most wanted 00:26:14.039 --> 00:26:16.400 list as well. And there is a bounty on her head. 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:19.799 A massive one. Initially, it was $100 ,000. But 00:26:19.799 --> 00:26:22.640 in June 2024, the U .S. State Department, through 00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:25.200 their Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, 00:26:25.539 --> 00:26:29.640 raised the reward to up to $5 million. $5 million 00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:32.920 for information leading to her arrest? That kind 00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:34.660 of money makes friends turn on friends, makes 00:26:34.660 --> 00:26:37.039 bodyguards and accomplices rethink their loyalty. 00:26:37.339 --> 00:26:40.019 It does. And it leads to the two prevailing theories 00:26:40.019 --> 00:26:43.119 about where she is. Theory one, she is alive, 00:26:43.420 --> 00:26:45.779 well, and looking very different. You mean plastic 00:26:45.779 --> 00:26:49.049 surgery? Extensive plastic surgery, a new face, 00:26:49.210 --> 00:26:52.309 new hair, a new identity, a new high -quality 00:26:52.309 --> 00:26:55.490 fake passport. Maybe living in a place like Russia 00:26:55.490 --> 00:26:58.029 or Dubai, somewhere with no extradition treaty 00:26:58.029 --> 00:27:00.990 with the U .S. She took enough money, likely 00:27:00.990 --> 00:27:04.289 billions, to pay for silence for a very, very 00:27:04.289 --> 00:27:06.549 long time. But then there's the darker theory, 00:27:06.710 --> 00:27:08.750 the theory that she isn't paying anyone anymore. 00:27:08.970 --> 00:27:11.460 The dead theory. This has been pushed heavily 00:27:11.460 --> 00:27:13.819 by investigative journalists, particularly in 00:27:13.819 --> 00:27:16.240 Bulgaria. They've uncovered sources suggesting 00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:18.619 she might have been murdered as early as November 00:27:18.619 --> 00:27:22.259 2018. Murdered by who? By the very organized 00:27:22.259 --> 00:27:24.599 crime figures who are allegedly protecting her 00:27:24.599 --> 00:27:26.859 and helping her launder money. There are strong 00:27:26.859 --> 00:27:29.480 allegations connecting her to a notorious Bulgarian 00:27:29.480 --> 00:27:32.839 drug lord known as Taki. So the theory is? The 00:27:32.839 --> 00:27:35.200 theory is that she became a liability. She knew 00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:36.759 too much. She was bringing way too much heat 00:27:36.759 --> 00:27:38.700 from the FBI and international law enforcement. 00:27:38.759 --> 00:27:41.559 So they closed the account permanently. There 00:27:41.559 --> 00:27:43.660 were those gruesome rumors that she was killed 00:27:43.660 --> 00:27:46.220 on a yacht in the Ionian Sea and dismembered. 00:27:46.220 --> 00:27:49.000 That's the story, yes. It's incredibly gruesome. 00:27:49.400 --> 00:27:53.980 But we have to stress, legally. Officially, she 00:27:53.980 --> 00:27:56.599 is a fugitive. The FBI doesn't put dead people 00:27:56.599 --> 00:27:59.099 on the Pop 10 list unless they have definitive 00:27:59.099 --> 00:28:02.079 proof. They believe there is still a chance she 00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:04.440 is out there. And while that international hunt 00:28:04.440 --> 00:28:07.619 goes on, the assets are slowly being clawed back. 00:28:07.920 --> 00:28:11.480 Very slowly. In 2024, the Bulgarian prosecutor 00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:14.579 general initiated proceedings to confiscate her 00:28:14.579 --> 00:28:16.839 properties in Sofia. We are talking about office 00:28:16.839 --> 00:28:19.519 buildings, luxury apartments. It's a dismantling 00:28:19.519 --> 00:28:22.269 of the physical empire she left behind. But the 00:28:22.269 --> 00:28:25.289 idea of one coin, that seems a lot harder to 00:28:25.289 --> 00:28:27.630 kill. It is. It's like a zombie. Yeah. Even after 00:28:27.630 --> 00:28:29.549 all the arrests, the convictions, the disappearance, 00:28:29.750 --> 00:28:32.170 the network tried to pivot. They rebranded. What'd 00:28:32.170 --> 00:28:33.829 they call it? They called it One Ecosystem. One 00:28:33.829 --> 00:28:36.029 Ecosystem. It sounds so benign and friendly. 00:28:36.670 --> 00:28:39.190 Exactly. They claimed it was a completely separate 00:28:39.190 --> 00:28:41.650 entity, just using the same community and some 00:28:41.650 --> 00:28:44.190 of the same, well, technology. They tried to 00:28:44.190 --> 00:28:45.990 migrate the users over. It's a zombie brand. 00:28:46.190 --> 00:28:47.809 Wow. It proves that once you have a community 00:28:47.809 --> 00:28:50.640 that believes. a community that's been radicalized 00:28:50.640 --> 00:28:53.539 into a certain worldview. You can keep milking 00:28:53.539 --> 00:28:56.259 them even after the original cow is long gone. 00:28:56.420 --> 00:28:59.099 It's terrifying. It shows that the scam wasn't 00:28:59.099 --> 00:29:00.779 just about the money. It was about the belief 00:29:00.779 --> 00:29:03.140 system they created. It was a movement for many 00:29:03.140 --> 00:29:07.039 people. So let's wrap this up. We have covered 00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:10.420 a lot of ground here. The fake education, the 00:29:10.420 --> 00:29:13.819 SQL database masquerading as a blockchain, the 00:29:13.819 --> 00:29:17.319 billions of dollars, the yachts, the prison sentences, 00:29:17.539 --> 00:29:20.599 the manhunt. It is a cautionary tale in every 00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:22.880 single sense of the word. For the listener, what 00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:25.460 is the one single thing they should take away 00:29:25.460 --> 00:29:28.099 from this? Aside from, you know, don't buy crypto 00:29:28.099 --> 00:29:30.660 from a woman in a ball gown at a rock concert. 00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:33.000 I think it comes back to that old saying that's 00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:35.779 become popular in crypto circles. If you don't 00:29:35.779 --> 00:29:37.980 understand where the yield comes from. You are 00:29:37.980 --> 00:29:40.539 the yield. I love that. Say that again. If you 00:29:40.539 --> 00:29:42.180 don't understand the mechanism of the profit, 00:29:42.359 --> 00:29:45.140 you are the profit. Yeah. OneCoin thrived on 00:29:45.140 --> 00:29:47.720 the black box model. Put money in here, magic 00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:50.259 happens inside, more money comes out there. Don't 00:29:50.259 --> 00:29:53.759 ask questions. Don't ask questions. And in the 00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:56.859 age of AI and even more complex crypto, we're 00:29:56.859 --> 00:29:58.779 going to see this again and again. People will 00:29:58.779 --> 00:30:02.519 say it's a quantum trading bot or it's an AI 00:30:02.519 --> 00:30:05.680 -driven decentralized finance protocol. Buzzwords 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:09.200 as camouflage for a scam. Exactly. If they can't 00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:11.059 explain it to you in plain English, or if the 00:30:11.059 --> 00:30:13.299 code isn't open source and verifiable by third 00:30:13.299 --> 00:30:16.200 parties, you have to assume it's a spreadsheet 00:30:16.200 --> 00:30:18.740 in a basement in Bulgaria. And assume the mining 00:30:18.740 --> 00:30:21.579 is just a progress bar on a screen. Precisely. 00:30:21.779 --> 00:30:23.799 Assume it's a game. I want to leave everyone 00:30:23.799 --> 00:30:28.339 with a thought to chew on. Ruša Ignatova. Five 00:30:28.339 --> 00:30:32.079 million dollars on her head. Right now, as you're 00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:34.380 listening to this, she is either at the bottom 00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:36.519 of the sea or she is sitting in a villa somewhere, 00:30:36.680 --> 00:30:38.259 maybe with a different nose and different hair, 00:30:38.339 --> 00:30:39.920 watching the news. Maybe she's even listening 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:41.980 to this deep dive. That is a chilling thought. 00:30:42.119 --> 00:30:43.819 If she is out there, she pulled off one of the 00:30:43.819 --> 00:30:45.700 greatest heists of the 21st century and got away 00:30:45.700 --> 00:30:47.799 with it. But if the circles she moved in, the 00:30:47.799 --> 00:30:50.000 drug lords, the international money launderers, 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:53.140 if they decided she was a loose end, then she 00:30:53.140 --> 00:30:55.859 paid the ultimate price for that fake coin. A 00:30:55.859 --> 00:30:59.059 very dark end to the story, if true. And for 00:30:59.059 --> 00:31:01.579 the rest of us, the next OneCoin is probably 00:31:01.579 --> 00:31:03.880 being launched right now on a Telegram group 00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:06.839 somewhere with a new charismatic leader and a 00:31:06.839 --> 00:31:10.299 new set of buzzwords. The question is, have we 00:31:10.299 --> 00:31:12.279 learned enough from this to spot it this time? 00:31:12.339 --> 00:31:14.180 I really hope so. Thanks for listening to The 00:31:14.180 --> 00:31:16.819 Deep Dive. Stay curious, stay skeptical, and 00:31:16.819 --> 00:31:19.220 whatever you do, keep your keys safe. We'll see 00:31:19.220 --> 00:31:19.640 you next time.