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