Crime boss linked to missing OneCoin scammer Ruja Ignatova shot dead
A Bulgarian mobster gunned down in South Africa may have been about to reveal more details about the disappearance of so-called ‘Crypto Queen’ and OneCoin scammer Ruja Ignatova.
As reported by Radio Free Europe, Krasimir Kamenov — also known as ‘Kuro’ — was found shot dead along with his wife and two other victims in his Cape Town home on May 25. Kamenov was alleged to have run a number of businesses, both legitimate and illegal, including a Sofia bathhouse, a fruit market, and an extortion operation located at a key border crossing with Turkey.
Now speculation is swirling that the underworld kingpin was killed because he knew too much about links between Bulgarian elites and the criminal underworld.
Back in March, Kamenov was charged with ordering the murder of police officer, Lyubomir Ivanov. When Ivanov’s home was searched, authorities discovered papers that allegedly outlined a plot to kill Ignatova, who disappeared in 2017 after conning OneCoin investors out of $5 billion.
The documents, which suggested that she’d been killed in 2018, also named a Bulgarian drug lord and associate of Kamenov from the 1990s.
The papers, which it’s alleged are official police reports, were investigated by Bulgaria’s Bureau of Investigative Reporting and Data (BIRD) and it was determined that she was killed on a yacht in the Ionian Sea.
According to BIRD, Kamenov had been its “source” for the police reports on the alleged plot and he was gearing up to reveal more to US investigators.
“What’s interesting is how people who for the last 20 years were only ‘urban legends’ suddenly became headline news,” investigative journalist Miroliuba Benatova told Radio Free Europe.
“Information about how Kuro is a suspect and maybe accused of organizing five murders, suddenly started to appear. It’s as if this man was protected from all that until now.”
She added, “The entire political elite and the elite of the judicial system have shown very clearly that these people who are from…organized crime, then whitewashed their business, are intertwined.”
Police have, so far, released no motive or suspects in Kamenov’s murder.
Read more: Cops hunting OneCoin scammers switch focus to Crypto Queen’s husband
Is Ignatova dead? The FBI doesn’t think so
Launched in 2014, OneCoin was touted as a crypto that could be mined, traded, and used to make payments. However, instead of a “Bitcoin killer” that guaranteed huge returns, the token was basically useless and the global network of willing OneCoin recruits tasked with luring in new investors were in fact part of a Ponzi scheme that made Ignatova and her co-founder Sebastian Greenwood millions.
Despite rumors of her death, Ignatova is still on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list — currently, the only woman to be given that dubious honor.
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