4 women who became infamous crypto fraudsters

Ruja Ignatova, a self-titled “CryptoQueen,” co-founded OneCoin with Karl Sebastian Greenwood in 2014 in Sofia, Bulgaria, creating one of the largest Ponzi schemes in cryptocurrency history. While Greenwood is facing a 20-year jail sentence, she is currently on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, with the U.S. government offering a $5 million bounty for information leading to her arrest or conviction.

A German citizen born in Bulgaria and educated at Oxford, Ignatova defrauded investors of an astounding $4.5 billion through her fraudulent cryptocurrency, OneCoin. The BBC produced a documentary about her, which revealed that she fled Sofia airport in 2017, allegedly bound for an event in Lisbon. Instead, she boarded a flight to Athens and was never seen again.

Since her disappearance, numerous theories about her fate have emerged, with suspicions that a drug trafficker may have murdered her.

Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research and ex-girlfriend of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (also known as SBF), is convicted of committing financial fraud. Last month, the court sentenced her to 24 months years in prison.

Ellison, 29, pleaded guilty to seven counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. A Stanford University graduate and the daughter of MIT professors, she served as the prosecution’s star witness against Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency executive.

SBF was convicted of fraud and theft of about $8 billion in customer funds in the spectacular collapse of the crypto exchange FTX. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March.

Heather Morgan was arrested alongside her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, in New York City in February 2022 on charges of money laundering related to the 2016 hack and theft of approximately 120,000 Bitcoin from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. The U.S. authorities seized around 95,000 of the stolen Bitcoin from cryptocurrency wallets, valued at approximately $3.6 billion at the time. Since their arrests, the government has also confiscated an additional $475 million linked to the hack.

While Lichtenstein is currently under house arrest, Morgan remains free on bail and reportedly attended the Bitcoin Conference 2024 in Nashville, raising questions among attendees. She pleaded guilty last year, and may face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She has since been awaiting sentencing, scheduled for November 8, 2024.

Jian Wen, 42, was found guilty of laundering Bitcoin in connection with a $6 billion fraud scheme in China and was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison earlier this year. In a significant 2018 operation, police in the U.K. seized over £1.7 billion (approximately $2.2 billion) worth of Bitcoin linked to the alleged fraud.

She was accused of laundering the proceeds from this fraud by converting the Bitcoin into cash and using the funds to purchase properties, jewelry, and other luxury items. Despite her involvement, the former takeaway worker claimed that she only managed a Bitcoin wallet on behalf of her boss and asserted that she was unaware of the illicit origins of the funds, insisting she was acting solely for her son’s well-being.