What if you’re just telling me a story and I don’t know like my head is spinning. Trust me we’ll talk about it.
I think... I have to do it. I should trust you. but it’s so difficult to trust you. when all this **** has happened. Did she believe that she was
being recorded at that time? I think at some point, probably. You have to be ******* careful. Do not use email. Face-to-face or encrypted phones
nothing else is safe just believe me. And then a dumb statement is made by our source, something to the effect of I'm just trying
to keep these cops off my ass, basically, and then pfft, there was no goodbye or
you're a scumbag or I know what you're up to. It was just click, gone. A Bulgarian woman has been placed on
the FBI's top ten most wanted list. Ruja Ignatova founded and ran
one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, peddling a fake cryptocurrency called OneCoin
and raking in billions of dollars. For five years, the BBC has been investigating the missing
cryptoqueen, a fraudster who stole billions. Now there may be a breakthrough. Finally, we've got information
that maybe this wasn't just a simple scam. Was she actually involved
in something much darker? Those at the heart of Ruja Ignatova’s
empire and those hunting her down reveal for the first time how she
may be linked to a major crime gang. She was physically threatened. These people, they were crooks. Gangsters. And then Ruja disappeared
from the face of the earth. This is real, serious, organised crime. Ruja knew too much, and she messed with the wrong guys. Can new evidence finally solve the mystery of what happened to the world's
most wanted woman? Let's give a warm applause for our founder, our lovely... Dr. Ruja, one, two, three... applause, please. It’s really a pleasure for me to be here one and a half years after we
launched our cryptocurrency OneCoin, and we already wrote history. But this is just the beginning. Dr. Ruja Ignatova is the founder
of a cryptocurrency, OneCoin. Investors pay hundreds to
attend her events worldwide. The minute she walks out, everyone's
holding their cameras up, oh my goodness me, it’s Dr. Ruja in person! Because for a lot of these investors,
they've never seen her before. She was real. She was actually there. This coin is going to be number
one worldwide. We will be the biggest out there. And we will write history. I believe what makes us different is our vision. We are more than just one coin. Promising huge returns, OneCoin claimed to have more
than three million investors around the world. For me to go to Wembley, it was wow, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, expensive watches. I was like, again, it was like Hollywood. I still feel like it was a dream. And nobody, nobody can compare to us. Ruja had this burning ambition to get rich, and she was also extremely good
at playing the role of the amazing crypto CEO. We will double the coins on your accounts. When I saw Dr. Ruja Ignatova
when she was talking about OneCoin, It was a hype that you invest in OneCoin, You can buy villas. You can you can buy nice cars. She is leading people out of their financial misery. And I thank you very much for being here,
sharing my vision and just making this happen. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I met Ruja around February 2016. I thought she was incredibly successful. Ruja was a very interesting
individual, very charming, very polite, very knowledgeable. She was a very nice person to work for. I myself did not work for OneCoin. I ran Ruja's private family office in
London to invest Ruja's personal fortune. She likes the fact that she is wealthy. She liked other people to know
that she was wealthy. She would always have large parties. I went to her birthday party,
it was a typical Ruja party, everybody dressed to the nines, Ruja
dripping in diamonds from head to toe. She always says, Look at me. Look how successful I am. But look at my CV. I went to Oxford University. I have a PHD in international law. This was a real high flier who was always
the smartest person in every room she walked into. Cryptocurrency is the future of money
transactions online. The timing could not be better. Bitcoin shows us the way,
but the best is still to come. Ruja launched the OneCoin cryptocurrency
during a time of financial revolution. Cryptocurrencies, a sort of digital cash, is a sort of brand new way to be
able to create and send money. Loads of excitement and hype about it. People have become millionaire overnight
because the bitcoin prices, it skyrocketed and I wanted to be a part of that. I don't want to miss another opportunity again. I actually went in opening a bank account and I use the overdraft
to buy the cryptocurrency and I'm like, this must be legit. So I invested all of the money
in the hope that, you know, that will solve my financial problems because at that time I was £20,000 in debt
and I was not even earning ten grand a year. But OneCoin wasn't ever really a cryptocurrency. It had all the trappings,
but that was just a ruse. What it was, was a Ponzi scheme,
a very old fashioned scam and a very simple scam, which is
take investment from new investors and use that investment to pay
the old investors a bit of a return. And you just keep that going
for as long as possible. Always taking a percentage for yourself. And at the very top is Dr. Ruja. We are a global currency and no other cryptocurrency has as many users as we do. Ruja Ignatova and the leaders of OneCoin stole $4.5 billion from their investors. I lost all of my money
and then on top of that, I had to keep borrowing money
from credit card companies and the banks. It was a really, really sad, embarrassing and depressing
moment of my life. We know there are investors all over the world. But OneCoin had a, you know, Bulgarian founder. The offices were in Sofia. But what we found is that Britain played
a really important role in the scam. It was about the lawyers and the PR people
that allowed the scam to continue. Rob Byrne and Jamie Bartlett are part of a BBC team investigating
what is one of the biggest frauds in history. The FBI and specialist investigators
from the Internal Revenue Service launched a criminal inquiry in 2016. For five years they've been investigating
OneCoin and Dr. Ruja, still don't really know
what the hell happened, and finally, someone from the authorities
who's been investigating it from that side has actually agreed to speak to me
about what really happened. He was the main investigator. He started the whole case off. It's definitely the most interesting story
I came across in 26 years. Just unbelievable characters,
they’re duping people left and right, they know how to get away with it, the FBI did a good job in helping us,
and we couldn't have done it without them but IRS is the one that brings
that into the U.S. Attorney's office. When you first saw Dr. Ruja,
what did you think of her? You knew you were looking at a fraudster. We knew that was all smoke and mirrors. I think it was a scam from day one. Because if you look at where all the money
ended up, it ended up in her pockets. Private jets, she had multimillion dollar mansions every one, so Dubai, London, Germany
are the three main ones we knew about. We heard about apartments
filled with cash in Hong Kong and Thailand. She had a yacht that was worth several million dollars. Ruja's billionaire lifestyle of yachts and seaside mansions was funded
by a complex financial network. We were able to trace billions of dollars. We were very close to that four
and a half billion dollar number. And then when you start piecing together the money trails,
it just opened up Pandora's box. How’s it moving, what sort of scale
are we talking about here? What we're seeing
is hundreds of millions of dollars being transferred over into shell companies. Ruja's problem is that she's
getting millions and millions, billions of euros in, and she
needs to somehow launder it. She needs to turn it into money
she can use, unconnected to OneCoin. So she's got this really sophisticated
system of trying to launder all of the proceeds of the OneCoin investors. Ruja used her boyfriend, Gilbert Armenta, to launder OneCoin’s money. In 2017 after tracking him for a year, the US authorities saw their chance. Gilbert had a private jet just
to go back and forth to see her. We’re on the tarmac, waiting for him to come
out the plane and, it's like you see in the movies He walks in, we got a warrant for your arrest. His face just drops. To his credit, he accepts responsibility. He knew his time was up. So we need him to tell us, what are you doing? Basically. Tell us everything you know
about what's going on. To help stay one step ahead of the law, Ruja had recruited a controversial figure
from Luxembourg. I think if there's one person who knows what happened to Ruja, it's most likely Frank Schneider. The word spy already has quite a negative connotation because it actually means
doing something a bit sleazy. I don't know. I took a client, took the wrong client. I said yes to the wrong person. I'm not saying that I wasn't attracted
by the potential financial gains. I mean, of course. Frank Schneider is a former top spy
who now runs a private intelligence agency. Frank had contacts, knew how
the darker side of this world actually worked, knew
how spying really worked. The way I understood Frank Schneider's role was like intelligence slash security for Ruja. They were very, very close. Frank was very protective of Ruja. Ruja seemed very protective of Frank. Ruja was very brilliant, extremely smart. But her success was accompanied by all sorts of problems, specifically her boyfriend, Gilbert. We found out pretty much at the beginning
that Gilbert was a problem. She would have wanted to definitely
know absolutely everything about him. Ruja had been tipped off that her lover,
Gilbert Armenta, had been arrested. She was warned he might talk. Frank or Ruja bought the townhouse above
Gilbert to specifically have spies in there listening in on what Gilbert was doing. This was a very sophisticated woman. This was not your run of the mill,
white collar criminal. So we get all these phone calls
that Ruja has been secretly recording of her talking to her boyfriend, Gilbert Armenta. Hello. Hey wait a second
let me switch off the thing. Ah how are you baby? I’m good. Yeah? Just worried about you. I miss you so much. But Gilbert Armenta is working
with the FBI and the IRS recording calls, too, to try to
get information out of Ruja. This is not like a three
or four phone call conversation. This is over a period of several weeks and you're just listening to the
conversation as it's happening. Yeah aout the trust and the paranoia issue of course we can stop trusting people we can just be me myself and I whatever but on the other hand
you know it makes life also very limited and very difficult. Some things I don’t trust you at all
like I’ll not lie to you. I think I... I have to do it. So it all feels like a bit of a game where they're trying to suss each other out. Sorry to say this I should trust you but it’s so difficult to trust you when all this **** has happened. I agree I agree. I would not like to agree with you
but yes you’re right. It doesn't seem like something
that happens in real life. She, spying on you and you were spying on her. We were all thinking, this is
going to be a movie someday, this is going to be a movie. Because, just... the things you heard are just unbelievable. Might be like you say it might not be Gilbert. What if you’re just telling me a story and I don’t know like my head is spinning. Ruja knew that she was under
threat by the United States. She also found out from her own sources that Gilbert Armenta, her lover,
was actually an informant and he was an instrument of the U.S. to grab her and get her to the U.S. and she wanted to turn this around
and get him and grab him and use her contacts to end him up
in some miserable situation in Bulgaria. Trust between us currently is not there. You lied to me on so many
things on a personal level. I think at this point we can see that
Ruja was pretty paranoid and rightly so. By 2017, police forces from ten different
countries were investigating OneCoin for fraud. According to Europol documents
handed to the BBC. So we got these documents
from Europol meetings that were about Operation Satellite,
which was the coordinated investigation into OneCoin and Ruja. It's believed these police documents
were also leaked to Ruja Ignatova. She was informed by her network
and her sources from Bulgaria as fast as with live coverage. Ruja had good connections in Bulgaria
to the intelligence service, they were to the prosecutor's office,
they were to the police. We knew early on she had ears all over the place,
even in some law enforcement. She had ears and knew that
she was being looked at so we got to be careful. You have to be ******* careful do not use email face-to-face or encrypted phones nothing else is safe just beleive me. I think we’re going to be OK. During one phone call with Ruja in October 2017 Gilbert Armenta let slip he was
secretly working for the Americans. It was a slip of the tongue. It was definitely a slip of the tongue. He went off script, something to the effect of I'm just trying
to keep these cops off my ass, basically. And then, there was no goodbye or you're
a scumbag or I know what you're up to. It was just click, gone. There's not a trace. She put the phone down. She never answered another call. She never communicated
with any of these people? Nothing. You never heard a voice again? Nope. That was it. After Gilbert confirmed the authorities were closing
in, Ruja acted immediately. My relationship with OneCoin
and with Ruja ended brutally on the 25th of October 2017, when from that day onwards,
Ruja was no longer to be seen and disappeared from the face of the earth. The last time anyone's ever seen Ruja,
she gets on a very early Ryanair flight from Sofia Airport, traveling to Athens
with a bodyguard, disembarks the plane, tells a bodyguard to go
back to Bulgaria and leaves her there. She'd been met in Greece, and got into the back of a Porsche
with about three big, burly men. And that was the last anybody’s ever seen of her. I was desperate to find out where Ruja was. I was emailing her every day, I wanted
to know that she was safe and well. I was texting her constantly saying, Ruja, where are you? Where are you? We need you. She never got back to me. Within a week, I had the two
lawyers sitting in my office and we’d hired a private investigator to find her. They said that there's no trace of her. The question's always been,
is she running from investors? Is she running from the authorities? In my mind, there's no doubt
she was running from US authorities. Since Ruja's disappearance, more than 100 people have been arrested
for their part in the OneCoin scam. And like Gilbert Armenta, some have been convicted of financial crimes. Ruja's former spy chief
Frank Schneider is accused of fraud and money laundering and
now faces extradition to the U.S. Every day is kind of the same. I'm lucky I have a large place,
but it is still prison. I can't leave, I can’t go shopping I can't do anything. I am under total house arrest. They are threatening me
with 40 years of prison. I mean, given the forces arrayed against you,
have you ever thought about running? No. That's just not an option. I mean, where do you run here
in this world? You know, it's... How on earth would I... no. The fact that he was potentially facing
the rest of his life in jail in America, so he was backed into a corner,
I suppose he felt, then it was in his best interests to speak to us. But he was allegedly involved in the fraud. And you can only deduce he knows a hell of a lot more than he told us. But while under house arrest,
Frank Schneider did provide the BBC with documents detailing OneCoin finances. Frank Schneider gave us a load of documents
that were pretty significant. We had internal documents which showed transactions
worth millions and millions of dollars. And if you look at who's
behind those companies, a very, some very shady individuals. This has to do with purely
serious money trafficking. OneCoin wasn't just laundering victims’ stolen money. It was handling funds from
a wide range of shell companies. Some in Britain. So some of the British companies
that were used to invest in OneCoin were tied to some pretty serious criminals, particularly moving money out of
Russia and Ukraine. For example we see that there's an entity
that was tied to the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who, you know, fled the country
and allegedly stole billions of dollars. Another of the companies
is tied to a Ukrainian arms dealer. He's been involved in the smuggling
of weapons from North Korea to Iran. Because of these connections
that we've established between Ruja and other criminals, it's really got us wondering, is there much
more to the story than we first thought? There'd always been some rumours
that Ruja was involved in... sort of criminal groups, but no one
ever really could say. No one ever really knew. But then Frank told us that Ruja really was sort of tightly embedded within
all these organised crime groups. This happened in Dubai. She was threatened more or less physically, or at least
there was a threat of a physical threat. She was approached by British lads
who sat next to her at a cafe and then indicated that she would get a request
and that she'd better follow that request. Otherwise there'd be consequences. This was a sort of a blackmail and extortion payment of several
tens of millions of dollars. Otherwise, there would be safety issues
for her and her family. They were... crooks. Gangsters. But who? Because you said you’d identify them. Yes. No, I'm not going to tell you who,
because I have a family and I have kids and I have a wife. And security reasons, too. So I know, this is real
serious organised crime. The BBC believes it can identify the man who is said to have blackmailed Ruja Ignatova. And that person is Gary Murphy,
a pretty big time British gangster. So Gary Murphy is a convicted
drug smuggler from Liverpool. This is a man who is quite feared, someone who knows how the
criminal underworld operates. So the curious thing is it looks like Gary
Murphy first got involved through some kind of bizarre extortion attempt,
but then later was working for OneCoin. But it seems like an
odd way to enter that world. UK court documents reveal that Gary Murphy went on to work
as an enforcer for OneCoin. What is clear is that Gary Murphy was involved in different aspects of the fraud. Things like protection, things like pursuing debts. Mr. Hampton, that trip to McDonald's on your way to work
yesterday is really not good for your health. That means that someone was following me. They got pictures of me in a service station
with my wife getting coffee. It was terrifying knowing that
someone was tailing us. It became worse when the police
told us to get protection. Christopher Hamilton is a British businessman. He's been accused by the U.S. of laundering $100 million for Ruja’s boyfriend, Gilbert Armenta. Charges Hamilton denies. But Christopher Hamilton is accused by
OneCoin of having tried to steal their money. One day he starts getting these
mysterious messages saying, Hello, Mr. Hamilton, we need that money back. It's so creepy isn’t it, to have pictures-- We go on this... This is the M4 motorway and the service station and that's not even by your house. No, it’s 100 miles away from my home. So someone's keeping tabs with you all
the way to be taking photographs of a U.S. service station. It is quite chilling. So we've been able to establish
that Gary Murphy was orchestrating this extortion attempt on
Christopher Hamilton for OneCoin. If this is not completed, matters are going
to take a turn for the worse. I assure you. And then there's pictures of your family as well. And then you see a picture of your grandkids. What we're talking about really is OneCoin, sending some organised criminal to sort of monitor you, watch you and
send you these threatening messages. The leaked Europol documents also link Ruja and OneCoin to another alleged organised crime figure. There's this mysterious name
that keeps popping up all over the place. Rumours online. He has all of these sort of strange
connections to OneCoin and to Ruja. And it's so confusing
as to who this man really is. His name is just Taki. His nickname is the Bulgarian cocaine King. Taki, he came up more than once. It wasn't like it was a one off. That was a recurring theme. That name? -Yeah.
-just kept popping up. Yep. He was the head of whatever
this drug organisation was. Better known as Taki, Hristoforos Amanatidis is widely suspected of being
a Bulgarian organised crime boss. But multiple police investigations
for murder, armed robbery and drug trafficking
have never led to a prosecution. Taki’s a mysterious figure. At one stage, Interpol were after him
on drug related charges. But that Interpol red notice, we understand, is no longer active. So no one's ever really nailed him
for anything. But he's certainly feared. And I'm thinking, why is this Taki character involved with OneCoin? Say, when you Google Hristoforos Nicos Amanatidis AKA Taki,
you get some quite strange results. Mainly blogs that are just full of nonsense,
quite frankly. I'd say the most eye catching one
is probably about his and his wife's joy that the great British Bake Off
is returning to screens. It's great to see classic recipes
such as the Victoria Sponge being revived and embraced
by a new generation of bakers. It's not to say that you can't be, you know, an alleged international drug smuggler and also love the Great British Bake Off
at the same time, that is possible. To me, my best guess is this is just a fake blog. Someone's been paid to put it out there. So the truth about him
is it’s just that little bit harder for people to find. We showed photographs of him to individuals that knew Ruja, were around her, perhaps identify him. I am 95% certain that I met that guy
on a number of occasions. And he was one of her bodyguards. Well, the FBI do refer to an international drug smuggler
who is in charge of Ruja’s security. And our understanding
is that that is Taki. We were told an allegedly big time
drug guy provides her physical security. Was he a bodyguard? No, No. His people would have been the bodyguards. Why would a suspected big time drugs guy be providing the physical security
for a woman in Bulgaria? Here, I'll give you security
if you launder my money. So, you know, she's well-protected. One source close to Ruja told the BBC she may have paid Taki up
to €100,000 a month for protection. As in most, let’s call them mafia environments, you have to buy yourself protection. Like in the classic kind of Chicago movie. You have to buy yourself protection and the bigger it gets, the
more dangerous it becomes. Listen I have done many many investigations but the most dangerous investigation in my professional story is the Ruja investigation. Journalist Dimitar Stoyanov has
been investigating Ruja's relationship with the Bulgarian underworld
and is now working alongside the BBC. The investigation is dangeous because
a lot of people want to bury the truth. I think Ruja is a product of Taki’s organisation and he played a key role in her life
according to the evidence. Bulgaria is completely
seized by organised crime and the situation is dire. Since becoming an investigative journalist I’ve been assaulted
more than ten times and I’ve had to leave the country
at least four times Dimitar can't prove Taki's involvement
in organised crime, but through his gangland sources, he's convinced Taki's a
big player with close connections to Ruja. Right now Taki is the “capo di tutti icapi’
he’s the head of the mafia. Taki is powerful enough to help anyone
who wants to hide or disappear. From what I’ve heard he
was really close to her. So there are a lot of unanswered questions
when it comes to Ruja and Taki's relationship. People say they were very close, for example, that he was the godfather of her daughter. The Christening of her daughter
was a three day extravaganza. On day one, it was going to be a party on
Ruja’s yacht, going around the Black Sea. Day two was the Christening itself and Ruja's daughter was
Christened on an island just off the coast. The Europol police documents
and Bulgarian property records also reveal financial connections between
Ruja and members of Taki's family. Ruja does a really mysterious
property deal with Taki's partner, where she buys a piece of land for nothing,
sells it to Ruja for millions of dollars. And even Taki's brother in law,
he also runs a company that has all of these connections to OneCoin. So there seems to be a financial relationship. Is it Ruja that's helping Taki
getting protection? Is it the fact that she's helping him
move money? Clearly, there's something mutually
beneficial going on here. So Taki just seems to grow and grow
and grow in this story. We don't know how Taki and Ruja met or whether he was involved
with OneCoin from the start. Taki is a ghost. You'll never see him. You only hear of him. You'll never talk to him. He's talking to you, through other people. You cannot deliver a message. You'll get messages if you don't listen, you disappear. You are either removed from office
or you just disappear from Earth. While a government minister, Ivan Hristanov
investigated allegations that Taki oversaw a significant criminal network
sanctioned by corrupt officials. So when we talk about Taki, Taki is the head of the mafia in Bulgaria. He's extremely powerful. The state, the political establishment and the mafia became one and the same thing. It became one body. With Bulgaria one of the most
corrupt countries in Europe, Many experts claim its mafia has a
strong hold on the political elite. After I started fighting with Taki, I was scared even to get home
and every time I would be like, you know, just trying to see if there is somebody
hiding behind the corridor. It's obvious that the Bulgarian agencies worked for this couple, Ruja and Taki. The only person who can protect her physically, but most importantly, protect her from all those investigations,
including from foreign agencies. It was Taki. Five years after Ruja Ignatova disappeared,
the FBI turned to the public for help. Today we are announcing Ruja Ignatova, an international fugitive who
allegedly masterminded a vast worldwide fraud scheme, is being added to
the FBI's top ten most wanted list. Ruja Ignatova, who became known
as the missing Crypto Queen, has been accused of defrauding victims
out of more than $4 billion. Why is she on that list? I mean, with the biggest criminals
in the world, I mean, Osama bin
Laden has been on that list. Is it because of a scam, a big scam or is it
because of the people she's associated with? The big time criminals, the darker world that maybe she's actually part of. Ignatova was always worried about law enforcement
and did the best she could to avoid detection. So starting today, we're offering a $100,000 reward
for information that leads to her arrest. There’s like this global manhunt
now for this woman, and they get in touch with me
saying I've seen her in a bar in Athens. I've seen her in a restaurant, it’s definitely her. She's been sighted on a British
Virgin Islands hotel she's on a yacht somewhere
floating around the Mediterranean we've seen her in a beach bar and every
single sighting turns out to be not her. Is the FBI still receiving
tip offs and leads? I know of two that we acted on,
but they turned out to be nothing. One completely off the wall,
one somewhat credible. Follow it up. Nothing. Was just another bad lead. Nobody knows where she is. That's the whole lore to this thing this is like a white collar crime
combined with what you would think El Chapo or somebody
like that would do on steroids. Even some of the biggest drug lords
in the world can't hide from the authorities forever.
We have no clue where she's at. One of the last people to speak to Ruja before her disappearance was her intelligence chief, Frank Schneider. I said, why do you have to leave? You are safe in Bulgaria. Nothing will happen to you in Bulgaria. You are, you are protected. Why do you want to leave Bulgaria? And she said, I have to. There will be a police raid and
my people want me out of the country. I have to do this. I don't have any choice. The very fact that the FBI can only say
that she landed in Greece and we have no idea where she went after that point shows
that there was serious planning. It was executed to perfection. I know there was an exit
strategy to at least Greece. You can't pull that off on a moment's notice. That has to be in place. Who is the person that you think would know
about that exit strategy? If I were a betting man, I think that
person would be Frank Schneider. From early on in the story A lot of people describe Frank Schneider as
the man behind the curtain, The Wizard of Oz. I didn't trust Frank. He's a spy. He's skilled in deception. Law enforcement agencies
could come and find me, but I couldn't tell them where she was
because I don't know where she is. Let's say she lives the high life
on some yacht in the Mediterranean. It is difficult to do that on such a profile. She is not the type that will live in the
jungle and hunt for food. The five star life that she that she had before that lifestyle does not go with disappearing. So I have a theory or a hypothesis that she no longer lives. It is so difficult to actually disappear without
a trace for so many years. What if Dr. Ruja is actually dead? I mean, it's possible. And if she's involved with all these serious,
organised criminals and who knows exactly what she's been up to, there are probably
a lot of people that would want her gone. Whatever happened to Ruja whether she went to soem
exotic destination or was killed Taki probably had something to do with it. One criminal associate of Taki’s, known as Kuro, claimed to have information
about Ruja's disappearance. Kuro told me he heard Taki discuss his criminal business in front of Ruja. Kuro asked Taki why did you talk in front of Ruja? Taki answered don’t worry she’s as good as dead. She disapperaed
three or four days later. Kuro had also obtained a secret police report
and handed it to Dimitar. It alleged that Taki’s Brother
in law had been overheard discussing Ruja. According to the report
the brother-in-law was drunk and also dstraught
when he said that Ruja Ignatova had been killed on a yacht in the Ionian sea. According to the document, he said that Taki had had Ruja murdered. Ruja was killed on a yacht off Greece. Her body was dismembered
and chucked in the sea. I mean, if it's true and it was Taki that in fact, ordered Ruja’s murder, it's horrific no matter what she did. And it really would change the complexion
of the story because the person who defrauded investors out of billions,
potentially herself has become a victim. The key question is why would Taki kill her. Well, one possible answer is
that she already knew too much. If in the Mafia you become a liability you're butchered and you're thrown
to sink at the bottom of the sea. And knowing how violent cartels are, if he thought she was a threat to him
and he had access to her, 100%, I would, he would probably take her out. But do I know that? No.
But that would make sense. If she's dead, I have to believe it's somebody close to her who knew where her funds or knew
how to access her funds or where they were one of the two. While the billions Ruja Ignatova stole have not been recovered,
property records and eyewitnesses suggest Taki’s associates are
now living in her Bulgarian mansions. Many of the properties that belonged to Ruja are curretly being used by people
connected to Taki. No body no crime unfortunately. I can’t be sure that Taki is responsible. for Ruja’s murder but I think it is a very very possible version because the moment we got it and the people in it found out we became the target of threats and surveillance. After publishing evidence Taki had
ordered Ruja's murder sometime around 2018, death threats again
forced Dimitar into hiding. I think Taki is a very dangerous man I try not to be afraid but in fact I have reason to be afraid. A lot of people are very fearful. They know that something terrifying and
horrific has happened in their neighborhood. Dimitar’s source Kuro gave evidence to the CIA
that Taki had ordered Ruja's murder according to witnesses questioned by the BBC. After the information leaked, Kuro was assassinated
while living in South Africa. Developments in the murder of four Bulgarians
in the leafy suburb of Constantia, a couple, their housekeeper and a bodyguard were found
with gunshot wounds to their heads. Kurowas killed in a brutal way. His home was broken into in Cape Town
in South Africa, and he was killed execution style, along with his wife
and the people who worked for him. Certain people had to be removed
because they knew too much about Taki. It was the kind of public execution
that looked more like a statement. Be careful who you deal with. Within the last year, two other high profile criminals in
Bulgaria have been murdered and another has disappeared. Hello, Dimitar what's happened? What's the new news? There has been another shooting in Bulgaria. Someone has been murdered in the street. Dimitar’s saying that another gangster is walking around in Sofia. and what sounds like an assassin from 20
meters away is just being able to... has shot him in the head. But what's scary is the thought
that you could just be walking down the street and just
suddenly just get shot in the head. Thanks Dimitar, bye. Bye bye. People just getting killed all the time in Bulgaria. I don't even know how deep this all goes, so I don't even know quite how powerful
these people really are and what lengths they would go to
to stop someone exposing them. While experts believe these murders point
to an ongoing feud in the Bulgarian underworld, there is no direct evidence
linking them to Taki. So there is a line of executions it is pretty obvious for us
there is a massive cleanup operation in this
mafia organised crime ecosystem. It's difficult to know if any of this
has got to do with Ruja or not. It is very brave to say that this clean up operation
is because of Ruja. It is very likely that actually Ruja
is part of the cleanup operation. One of the people on top of the list
to get removed. Taki has never been arrested over claims
he had Ruja Ignatova murdered. Bulgarian police say they don't have enough evidence. The BBC has uncovered the sudden death of yet
another criminal connected to OneCoin. Gary Murphy was involved in a quad bike accident. He went off the side of a cliff
like a lot of people in this story, not a good way to go. The one thing that is clear from the story is that people are either ending up in jail, they're ending up dead, or they're disappearing. And in a further twist,
just months after our interview, Ruja's spy chief himself joined the list. I get a call from someone saying Frank Schneider has disappeared. What do you mean he disappeared? He's gone, what, has he been
extradited to the US? No, he's vanished. He's gone on the run. Ruja’s Mr. Fixer has done exactly
the same thing as his old boss. He just disappeared into thin air. Ruja Ignatova remains
the world's most wanted woman, and the FBI is still looking for her. In the years after she’s said to have been murdered, there have been several reported sightings. There was even a police raid in Greece, but still nothing. No body has ever been found. Whether Ruja is dead or not, it's very hard to be sure about this. It could be, this is just another brilliant maneuver
to throw everyone off the scent. And I wouldn't put it past her to do that. But it's more and more likely
that actually she's dead. We're chasing a shadow. At some point, it becomes like,
Elvis Presley might be still alive. Ruja might be still alive on some distant
island, too, with young boys around her. It's not really very likely. She messed with the wrong guys.
