The story of a woman who looted billions through the cryptocurrency 'One Coin' and disappeared

Crypto Queen: The story of a woman who looted billions through the cryptocurrency 'One Coin' and disappeared

Roja Agnatova liked to call herself the "Queen of Corrupt Currencies" or "Crypto Queen". She used to tell people that she had invented a new cryptocurrency compared to bitcoin and that people should invest billions of dollars in this currency. And then two years ago, Roja suddenly disappeared. For the past several months, Jamie Bartlett has been trying to figure out where the corrupt Queen has gone.

It was June 2016 when Dr. Roja Agnatova appeared on stage at the famous Wembley Arena in London in front of thousands of her fans. As usual, she was dressed in a very expensive gown, with long diamond earrings in her ears and bright red lipstick. To the applause, he told the audience that the day is not far when 'One Coin' will become the world's largest corrupt currency and people from anywhere in the world will be able to use this currency for financial payments.

Dr. Roja talks about the One Queen in front of thousands of fans at Wembley Arena, London's famous stadium.

Remember that the world's first cryptocurrency is 'bitcoin' and even today it is the largest and most popular digital currency.

With the success of the bitcoin, the idea of ​​a cryptocurrency gained momentum and many people around the world began to take an interest in this new way of making money.

Standing on the stage at Wembley Stadium, Dr Roja said that one coin would actually be a "bitcoin killer" and that "after two years no one will even name a bitcoin".

Even before Dr. Roja's speech, people had started investing in One Coin and many had invested their savings in it, in the hope that they too would be part of this new revolution.

Some classified documents obtained by the BBC show that in the first six months of 2016, people in the UK alone had invested around 30 million in OneCoin, of which 2 million in just one week. Were imposed.

Between August 2014 and March 2017, people in dozens of other countries also bought four billion euro bitcoins. These countries ranged from Pakistan to Brazil, from Hong Kong to Norway and from Canada to Yemen, even Palestine.

But these investors did not know a very important thing.

Before explaining this, it is important to explain how cryptocurrency works.

What is cryptocurrency?

This is very difficult to understand. If you go to the internet, you will see hundreds of different opinions about cryptocurrency, some of which you are surprised to read and some of which are clearly not written by any expert.

Disagreements exist, but one thing you can understand immediately and that is that the value of any currency is the same as what people think. Whether it's banknotes and coins issued by the Bank of England, precious stones or anything like that. Any currency works only when everyone recognizes it.

For a long time, people have been trying to create a digital currency that does not need national borders and does not depend on the currency of any particular country.

But these people always had to face failure because no one believed them. People have always wanted to have an institution or a person who can turn the supply of this currency upside down and secondly, it was very easy to duplicate digital currency.

That is why many people were happy with the arrival of Bitcoin and began to believe that it would not have any problems.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin relies on a special type of database called blockchain. Blockchain is a huge book of sorts and if you buy a bitcoin you get a copy of that book. For example, whenever a bitcoin is sent by me to another person, it is noted in the book, a copy of which is available to all Bitcoin users.

This means that neither the government, nor the bank, nor the person who invented the bitcoin can change the coin. There are mathematical principles behind all of this, but neither bitcoin can be copied, nor can a bitcoin book be hacked, nor can a bitcoin be spent twice.

I also explained this to the person in my family who is scared of technology, my mother. His answer was that my son did not understand anything, tell me again.

So if you don't understand, don't worry. The bottom line is that the Black Chain database is what drives any digital currency, such as bitcoin. For those who love digital currency, it is the most revolutionary type of currency, with the potential to sideline banks and national currencies and provide online banking to anyone with a mobile phone.

And if you become one of the earliest buyers of digital currency, your luck may change.

Dr. Roja's amazing thing is that he understood all this and he started selling this idea in droves.

But there must have been something wrong with it.

In early October 2016, four months after Dr. Roja's big event in London, a job-seeking company called Blockchain expert Yvonne Pierre and offered her a very interesting job.

He was told that a new cryptocurrency company in Bulgaria needed a chief technical officer and that he would receive an attractive salary of 50 250,000 a year, in addition to a house and a car.

"I was wondering what my job at the company would be like," says Yvonne Pierrek, recalling the day.

I thought the company would need a blockchain first because they don't have a blockchain.

I asked the recruiting agent, "Is this really a cryptocurrency company?"

Anjet's answer was that I was right. It was a corrupt company that had been operating for some time, but they did not have a blockchain. That's why we want you to make the company a blockchain.

What is the name of the company?

The agent's response was "one coin."

Yvonne Pierrek did not take the job.

Jane McAdam's 'Tycoon' package

A few months before the incident, a woman named Jane McAdam received a phone call from a friend telling her to invest in something that could make millions of pounds. Jane, sitting at her home in Glasgow, opened the computer and clicked on the "One Coin" link.

For the next hour and a half, she sat in front of the computer and listened to different people say what a great currency one coin is and how it can change your destiny. According to Jane, everyone on her website was talking "very passionate and emotional."

"You have no idea how lucky you are to have heard this online seminar," he said. You are joining us at the right time and soon this currency will also become a big currency like bitcoin. Digital currency bigger than bitcoin.

The hosts of the seminar were singing Dr. Roja's brilliant background: Oxford University, then PhD, then employment with the famous management company Mackenzie & Co., etc.

Dr. Roja's speech was then shown on a website hosted by The Economist, a popular magazine. That's what convinced Jane to be a coin. According to Jane, she thought, 'Wow, what about the power of women. (Being a woman) I was proud of Roja. '

The website featured Dr. Roja's speech at a conference hosted by The Economist. That's what convinced Jane to be a coin

By the time that webinar was over, Jane had decided to invest a thousand euros in one coin. It was easy.

You bought one thousand euro one coin tokens, the coins received from these tokens were credited to your account. Jane was told that one day she would be able to convert these coins back into euros or pounds. Jane found the process easy. He wondered if a thousand euros would be enough for an investment.

On this, the promoters of OneQueen said that if you really want to change your life, then you should take a big package of OneQueen. The smallest package was 140 euros and the largest was 118,000 euros. A week later, Jane bought the Tycoon package for 5,000 euros.

In a short time, Jane had invested 10,000 euros in her coin and had persuaded her friends and loved ones to invest 250,000 euros.

After this investment, as the value of her one coin increased, she was happy to see it on the website. In a short time this value became one million euros, meaning their capital had increased tenfold. He started planning sightseeing and shopping.

But in the last days of 2016, a stranger contacted Jane on the Internet. The man claimed to be a good, compassionate man and had done a great deal of research on one coin.

According to him, the purpose is to contact only those who have invested in One Coin. Jane was reluctant to talk to the man but then he spoke to her via Skype. Their conversation soon turned into a heated debate as the man insisted that Jane had been the victim of a massive deception. Although Jane disagreed, the conversation changed Jane's life.

The stranger was Timothy Curry, a staunch supporter of bitcoin and a vocal advocate of cryptocurrency. Timothy believed that One Coin would be a source of scandal for the idea of ​​a digital currency, and he made it clear to Jane that One Coin was "the biggest fraud in the world."

He said he could prove it. Jane said to prove it.

Over the next several weeks, Timothy sent Jane a wealth of information on how cryptocurrency works. In addition to several articles, Internet links and YouTube videos, Timothy introduced Jane to the Internet through a man who specializes in creating blockchains himself and had said that OneQueen did not have a blockchain.

It took Jane three months to understand all this information, but the benefit was that questions began to arise in Jane's mind. He started asking people in his OneCoin group if OneCoin had a blockchain. At first Jane was told she didn't need to know, but when she insisted, in April 2017, she finally found out.

A message recorded by someone in his name said, "Jane. ۔ OneCoin does not want this kind of information to come to light so that there is no disturbance in the place where this blockchain is located. And second, the OneCoin app doesn't require a blockchain. So our blockchain technology is actually in the form of a MySQL server with a database inside. '

But by then Jane, courtesy of Timothy Curry and Pierrek, had learned that no cryptocurrency could run from the MySQL database alone. Unlike Blockchain, the manager can modify this type of database at any time.

‘I thought, what ??????

"My legs were numb and I fell to the floor."

This meant that Jane now understood that the increase in the value of her one coin was meaningless. One of the Coin's officials was sitting somewhere, just changing numbers. By then, however, Jane, her family and friends had lost almost  2.5 million in coins. He thought that maybe his financial problems would end but now his savings seemed to be sinking.

Dr. Roja disappears from the scene

Although Jane McAdam and a few others understood the whole thing, Dr. Roja was still visiting different countries and selling one coin from place to place.

One Coin buyers were still growing, and Dr. Roja began to use the one-coin earnings. She was buying property worth millions of dollars in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and Suzhou Pool, a tourist destination on the shores of the Black Sea. In her spare time, she was hosting parties on a luxury boat called Dovina. American pop star Baby Rexha also performed for selected guests at a similar party in July 2017.

But behind this seeming success, things started to get worse.

For example, the opening of the exchange, which has been talked about for a long time, was constantly delayed. OneCoin claimed that people would be able to exchange their OneCoin for another currency from this exchange. As a result, investors became increasingly concerned.

To address this, a large gathering of OneCoin promoters from across Europe was announced in October 2017 in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.

But when that day came, Dr. Roja, who was known to be punctual, did not arrive.

"Everyone was saying she was coming to the ceremony, but no one knew where she was," said one of the participants.

"People called him again and again in distress and left messages on their mobiles, but there was no response from the other side. Even at the company's headquarters in Sofia, no one knew where Dr. Roja was. She had disappeared.

Some people were worried that they might have been killed or kidnapped at the behest of a bank that feared such a major revolution in the world of cryptocurrencies.

But the fact was that Dr. Roja had gone underground. According to FBI documents released earlier this year, on October 25, 2017, just two weeks after the Lisbon summit, she boarded a Rhine Air flight from Sofia to Athens. And then she disappeared. It was the last day anyone saw or heard of Dr. Roja.