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 principle and supported by paperwork linked to legislation enforcement.
Right here’s why I feel it doesn’t maintain up.
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 needed Bulgarian drug lord.
Taki is one of many largest cocaine traffickers in Bulgarian historical past. He inherited the crime empire of Georgi Iliev, after he was shot useless 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 prices towards him had been finally dropped.
Taki remains 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 below investigation for his function in a $50 million heist courting again to 2002. The cash is believed to be tied to terrorism.
Again dwelling, Taki is sweet buddies with head of Bulgaria’s federal murder division, Mikhail Naumov.
Naumov is believed to have protected Taki inside Bulgaria over time.
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 below wraps.
Lyubomir Ivanov, former head of the legal division of Bulgaria’s nationwide police, was shot useless on March twenty fifth, 2022.
Inside paperwork seized from Ivanov’s private secure, 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 reduce up and thrown into the water.
The hit was purportedly accomplished by Hristo “Koeravi” Hristov, presently imprisoned within the Netherlands on heroin trafficking prices.
The Bulgarian Public Prosecutors Workplace verified the paperwork. They knowledgeable BIRD nevertheless that they didn’t and will not be 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 studies both.
That paperwork are claimed to have been shared with the DOJ sooner or later. What the paperwork had been doing within the private secure of Lyubomir Ivanov stays unclear.
In search of solutions, BIRD put forth the next inquiries to Ivan Demerdzhiev, Bulgaria’s Minister of Inner Affairs;
After the evaluation of this knowledge, 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 wish 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 submit fairly naturally.
Rashkov additionally commented that after he left the ministry, many controversial appointments occurred there.
BIRD’s report claims Rashkov “eliminated” Naumov from his submit. Elsewhere within the article nevertheless it’s urged Naumov remains 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 comparable 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 along with your letter, with which you increase questions relating to pre-trial proceedings below pr. pr. 8467/2022 based on the stock of the Sofia Metropolis Prosecutor’s Workplace, we offer you the next data.
In the middle of the investigation of the stated file, sheets of A4 format paper with printed textual content had been hooked up to the case.
They don’t represent a doc, insofar as there isn’t a details about their creator, they don’t bear a signature and don’t characterize a particular written assertion of will of a particular pure particular person.
On this regard, they don’t seem to be topic to verification by way of the strategies of proof supplied for within the Prison Process Code (CPC), specifically the appointment of a graphic professional, 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 introduced in them can’t be verified even by questioning a witness.
Resulting from these concerns, the supervising prosecutor got here to the conclusion that the stipulations of Artwork. 216 of the Code of Prison Process for the separation of the case, since in the meanwhile no proof has been collected of a attainable homicide – a criminal offense below Artwork. 115 of the Prison Code and/or presumably a criminal offense dedicated on responsibility.
Investigation is a dynamic course of. In line with the talked about pre-trial proceedings, new actions within the investigation are pending. The procedural act of dividing the case might be carried out if proof is collected of presumably dedicated different crimes.
BIRD notes that, outdoors 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 definitely plausible.
The issue from my finish is there’s a variety of context and data 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 secure?
Certainly ties to a girl on the FBI’s prime 10 most needed 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, but it surely’s solely attainable it is a planted story to sow doubt and confusion into OneCoin legal 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” principle 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 deliver us again to Taki ordering Ignatova useless. 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 legal exploits, Ignatova’s legal profession (ignoring some minor prices in Germany), started and ended with OneCoin.
If caught, Ignatova faces the remainder of her life in jail – and there’s just about no probability 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 assertion 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;
Ok was talking to Ruja proper up till his arrest. He bitched about her, at all times used the current tense when talking about her and obtained upset when he obtained sure cellphone calls.
Plus they discovered 4 numbers for her on his cellphone, there have been present docs along with her signature on on his laptop computer, and many others.
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 useless by the hands of Christophoros Amanatidis-Taki, maybe that’s the rationale Konstantin’s plea deal included entry into the US’ Witness Safety Program.
Ruja Ignatova would possibly very nicely be useless – however personally I don’t suppose she was murdered in 2018.
