What does a OneLife-produced occasion appear to be? Is the group that helps the OneCoin neighborhood competent sufficient to supply a magnificence pageant? The reply to these questions would possibly shock you. For this fourth episode, Jamie Bartlett and Georgia Catt go into the lion’s den. They go to Bucharest, Romania, and help the Miss OneLife coronation. Apparently, the occasion had a few of “the world’s most famous brands as sponsors.” However, because it occurs with the whole lot Dr. Ruja associated, issues are usually not what they appear.
This episode’s visitor star is Christi Calina, who’s a OneLife “independent marketing associate” and one of many occasion’s producers. Since the person’s ghosting them, Jamie and Georgia ambush him at a OneLife occasion in the identical metropolis. The convention “looks like the real deal, just like OneCoin,” Jamie evaluates. There, they get entry to the Miss OneLife occasion and issues take a flip for the mysterious.
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About “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” Episode Four – “Miss OneLife”
In this episode, Jamie and Georgia undergo the costs towards Konstantin Ignatov, Dr. Ruja’s brother. They comprise a number of the FBI paperwork in regards to the case and embody emails between Dr. Ruja and “other top leaders” of the OneLife group. In these, the individuals allegedly talk about how the rip-off works intimately. If these are actual, there’s little question that OneCoin was a really deliberate rip-off from the very starting. They even talk about how you can pretend the mining of the cryptocurrency, and provides causes to make use of a well-known time period like “mining” to idiot their purchasers.
In these emails, Dr. Ruja discusses a doable exit technique and proposes they may “take the money and run and blame someone else for this.”
Later on, the FBI claims Dr. Ruja is “directly associated with significant players in the Easter European organized crime.”
It’s essential to know that OneCoin disputes all of those allegations. We included a part of their denial within the quotes part. We additionally included concrete details about Dr. Ruja’s disappearance and a brand new issue which may clarify why she fled on the time she did.
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The Miss OneLife Beauty Pageant
Our heroes go into the attention of the storm. They can barely enter the premises as a result of everybody within the OneLife group is aware of precisely who they’re. They don’t mix in. Everyone is “smartly dressed.” Bottles of Moet and cigars abound. The manufacturing is slick. A stage comes down from the ceiling and Jamie loses his thoughts. In the tip, they each admit that the OneLife group can throw a hell of an occasion. It was boring, although. And it doesn’t appear to be any cryptocurrency-associated occasion that the podcast host has ever attended.
“OneCoin is still going and there’s a lot of money here,” Jamie says earlier than fleeing the occasion.
Back in London, the producers reality-examine the whole lot that occurred. The well-known manufacturers that had been supposedly hooked up to the Miss OneLife occasion deny sponsorship. They’ve by no means heard of the occasion. Then, they contact Forbes and the journal denies that Dr. Ruja was ever on the duvet just like the group made appear of their promotional materials. Then, they examine on their schooling claims. As it seems, Dr. Ruja did go to Oxford and bought the diploma she claimed to have.
To end the episode off, Jamie interviews Miss OneLife UK. She provides them peripheral data, just like the occasion’s ticketing wasn’t open to the general public and one of many prizes was a present card for beauty surgical procedure. Then, Jamie mentions Dr. Ruja. She says that she heard somebody essential was on the occasion, however couldn’t keep in mind if it was her.
Is it doable that Dr. Ruja was in attendance on the Miss OneLife occasion? Apparently, “she’s unrecognizable now.”
This story will get extra fascinating by the minute.
Quotes From “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” Episode Four – “Miss OneLife”
OneCoin’s assertion:
“OneCoin disputes all allegations. To our claim that OneCoin is not a cryptocurrency and that its nominal price is not determined by demand and supply, but is manipulated and set internally, they said: “OneCoin verifiably fulfills all criteria of the definition of cryptocurrency, and also those of a transparent pricing that is in line with the common market”. The BBC podcast collection, they are saying, “is based on testimonials of haters, former employees who were either fired or disgracefully dismissed for internal company violations, intellectual property theft, and other violations. Thus, the series will not present any truthful information and cannot be considered objective, nor unbiased.”
Concrete details about Dr. Ruja’s disappearance, and a brand new issue which may clarify why she fled:
“The FBI files also contained valuable new information about Dr. Ruja’s disappearance. “Bulgarian travel records show that on or about October 25th, 2017, Ruja flew on Ryanair from Sofia, Bulgaria to Athens, Greece.” Dr. Ruja was final seen in Sozopol, in round July 2017. That was on her non-public yacht, the Davina, the one we noticed. On October seventh, she then failed to show up at a OneCoin occasion in Lisbon. But now we all know that her final identified whereabouts was in actual fact Athens on twenty fifth October 2017. And there’s some extra clues right here.
Last week, I stated that the US authorities charged Dr. Ruja in absentia in March 2019. That’s not the entire story. We’ve discovered that Dr. Ruja was truly indicted on twelfth October 2017, however this indictment was sealed till March 2019. It was simply two weeks after that first indictment that Dr. Ruja vanished. Is it doable she may have been tipped off?”
Extra Material And Episode Credits
As you most likely know should you’ve gotten this far within the collection, Dr. Ruja is on the FBI’s most-wanted list. The textual content below her title says:
“Ruja Ignatova is wanted for her alleged participation in a large-scale fraud scheme. Beginning in approximately 2014, Ignatova and others are alleged to have defrauded billions of dollars from investors all over the world. Ignatova was the founder of OneCoin Ltd., a Bulgaria-based company that marketed a purported cryptocurrency. In order to execute the scheme, Ignatova allegedly made false statements and representations to individuals in order to solicit investments in OneCoin. She allegedly instructed victims to transmit investment funds to OneCoin accounts in order to purchase OneCoin packages, causing victims to send wire transfers representing these investments. Throughout the scheme, OneCoin is believed to have defrauded victims out of more than $4 billion.”
And lastly, the episode’s credit:
Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Georgia Catt
Story advisor: Chris Berube
Editor: Philip Sellars
Original music and sound design: Phil Channell
Original music and vocals: Dessislava Stefanova and the London Bulgarian Choir
Previous Companion Guides For BBC’s “The Missing Cryptoqueen” Podcast:
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