While according to media reports, Kyle Livingston Davies, the cofounder of former cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, has succeeded in buying Dominica citizenship in 2009 – three years before launching the fraudulent Three Arrows, a large number of crypto scammers, including Ruja Ignatova, the infamous founder of OneCoin who is also known as crypto queen has reportedly obtained citizenship of Dominica and few more Caribbean nations using various names and identities and been using these passports in travelling to one country from another thus dodging FBI warrant of arrest and numerous criminals cases.
Ruja Ignatova is FBI’s Ten-Most-Wanted fugitive, while Karl Sebastian Greenwood, the co-founder of the infamous cryptocurrency scam OneCoin, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined US$300 million for his role in defrauding investors of a staggering US$4 billion. Greenwood, alongside the still-elusive ‘Cryptoqueen’ Ruja Ignatova, orchestrated one of the largest scams in history, deceiving over 3.5 million victims worldwide.
Announcing Greenwood’s sentence, US Attorney Damian Williams emphasized its significance in deterring fraudulent activities within the financial sector. “We hope this lengthy sentence resonates in the financial sector and deters anyone who may be tempted to lie to investors and exploit the cryptocurrency system through fraud”, Williams stated.
The FBI acknowledged Greenwood’s prowess as a salesman and the role of the MLM structure in OneCoin’s rapid ascent. However, they were clear that the misrepresentations made by Greenwood and others to OneCoin investors were numerous, and the cryptocurrency itself held no actual value.
The FBI further highlighted how OneCoin deceived its members by falsely claiming that the cryptocurrency’s value was determined by market supply and demand, when in truth, OneCoin arbitrarily set its value without regard for market forces.
While Ruja Ignatova fled Sofia for Athens in 2017 and remains wanted by the FBI, Greenwood was arrested and extradited from Thailand in July 2018 to face charges of fraud and money laundering.
A number of front-ranking UK lawyers are reportedly extending legal services against huge service charge to Ruja Ignatova, one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives who went into hiding after defrauding investors out of US$4 billion in cryptocurrency scam named ‘OneCoin’. Although Ruja Ignatova is seen by Federal Investigation Agency (FBI) as “missing cryptoqueen or a fugitive, in reality she has been living in the United Kingdom under protection of several mighty politicians belonging to the Labour Party, while she is enjoying legal services from a number of front-ranking UK lawyers. Last week she came out of hiding to make a formal claim on a £13.5 million townhouse in London, while the UK authorities neither arrested her nor brought the matter to attention of Interpol or FBI.
Meanwhile, according to information, a UK law firm named Locke Lord offered its services to Ruja Ignatova long after she went missing. A letter admitted in evidence at the US trial of ex-employee Mark Scott shows that on July 12, 2018 James Channo, a partner at the London branch of the firm, wrote to Ruja about her UK properties.
“We believe it is important that we revisit the manner in which you hold your real estate interests in the UK,” he wrote. The letter, addressed to Ruja at a Sofia address.
A statement provided by Locke Lord and James Channo said the letter was an offer of legal services “in a standard form”, that it was disclosed by Locke Lord to US prosecutors, and that no work was done for Ruja as a result.
One interesting line in the letter confirmed what BBC sources had been telling – that it wasn’t just the penthouse Ruja Ignatova had bought in the UK. On the fifth floor of Abbots House there’s a less fancy two-bedroom apartment that ex-porter James told BBC Ruja Ignatova’s bodyguards would stay in.
UK records show the owner of 11 Abbots House is also a Guernsey shell company, Abbots Property Limited, and that it too is registered at Aquitaine’s address.
The smaller flat was also bought in 2016 – for £1.9m. Her name was again kept off the paperwork, but our sources say she was the one behind the purchase.
Asked by the BBC about its dealings with Ruja Ignatova, Aquitaine said it had no comment to make.
BBC report said, after she disappeared, 11 Abbots House seems to have taken on a different function, serving as a secret storage facility, which its sources told at one point that house was containing two large safes.
It may be mentioned here that, Ruja Ignatova, who is on the FBI’s top 10 most-wanted list has been missing since 2017 when United States officials issued a warrant for her arrest. She founded OneCoin, a Bulgaria-based company that marketed a cryptocurrency. The company offered buyers a commission if they sold the currency to more people but the FBI said it was ultimately worthless. It has been described as a Ponzi scheme disguised as a cryptocurrency.
Since her disappearance in 2017, Blitz in a number of exclusive reports had had provided information about Ruja Ignatova owning properties in the United Kingdom, Dubai and several Caribbean island countries.
According to BBC and few other sources, Ruja Ignatova has been visiting Britain even before her “disappearance” from the US. A former porter at the exclusive Abbots House apartment block in Kensington remembers meeting Ruja Ignatova in 2016, as she returned from a shopping trip with her Bulgarian bodyguards.
“These two poor men came behind her like overloaded donkeys, struggling, and a bit out of breath – they must’ve had 20 bags each”, says James (not his real name).
Ruja Ignatova had been splashing out on designer-label goods – Jimmy Choo, Prada, and Calvin Klein – without regard for the expense. A little later, James got a look inside her four-bedroom penthouse flat, complete with swimming pool.
“She had an Andy Warhol painting stuffed in the cupboard, and that broke my heart because I went to art college”, says the ex-policeman.
That was a print of the actress, Elizabeth Taylor. Another Warhol, Red Lenin, hung above the fireplace. To the left of a sofa in another reception room was a print of Queen Bubblegum by Michael Moebius, showing Queen Elizabeth blowing a bubble.
According to a source, Ruja Ignatova succeeded in buying Dominica citizenship by giving “extra cash” to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, while it is also learnt that Ruja has made significant investment in various business ventures in Dominica and other Caribbean nations.
The source further said, it is not only Kyle Livingston Davies and Ruja Ignatova, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has sold citizenship to a large number of crypto scammers, including Zuzana Uchnárová (Zuzana Uchnarova) and Vit Jedlička, owners of a fraud venture named ‘Liberland’.
According to a website, Zuzana Uchnárová (Zuzana Uchnarova) proclaims herself as the “Co-owner” of Liberland. Meaning, she actually is not only the so-called ambassador of Liberland, she is the co-owner of a non-existent country named Liberland with Vit Jedlička. This claim of ownership by Zuzana and Vit proves – they actually are using this ‘Liberland’ as a product or property or venture.
Talking to American multimedia news agency Vice, Zuzana Uchnárová (Zuzana Uchnarova), who is introduced as a “Bitcoin miner” said: “For you, [Liberland] is just a dream but for me it’s real. I know we want to change the world and I know we want to change something”.
Uchnarova added that she thought Liberland could be “a new Dubai”, or home to a fantastical space program.
“We would like to build a new Dubai here, maybe more than Dubai”, she said. “Maybe we will build something that will transfer us to orbit directly. My dream is to have a hotel in orbit and everything will be paid for by bitcoins”.
In Liberland, taxes will give you merits that can be used for voting. The more taxes you pay, the more tokens you receive. Jedlicka believes this is “much fairer” than trying to give everyone the same vote.
“If you paid $30 million in taxes, you still have one vote. That’s one of the things that’s a little broken about the systems that we are living in”, Vit Jedlicka said. “It’s very important to do it so that the majority of society cannot dictate the minority, especially the minority that actually pays the taxes and makes the country possible”.
It may be mentioned here that, Zuzana Uchnárová (Zuzana Uchnarova), a “Bitcoin miner” as stated by Vice, lives a posh life in Dubai, thus mixing high-profile people. She has multiple university degrees and been until now continuing her efforts of selling shares and citizenship of a non-existent Liberland and well as its crypto currency to prospective investors.
