0:00

This is the BBC.

0:02

This podcast is supported

0:04

by advertising outside the UK.

0:10

For over a decade,

0:13

pair of mug shots have side

0:15

by side on the FBI's website.

0:17

These individuals are considered

0:20

as terrorists.

0:20

The cause of their alleged terrorist actions,

0:23

the environment.

0:24

Estimates are a quarter billion dollars in

0:26

damages.

0:27

How far is too far to go

0:29

to stop the planet burning?

0:31

If it's not me, then it's who. And if it's

0:33

not now, learned into whack into whack.

0:35

Burn

0:35

wild. Find us wherever

0:38

you get your podcasts.

0:43

Hi. This

0:44

is Georgia, the producer of the missing crypto

0:46

queen. Before

0:47

we bring you this new episode, I wanted

0:49

to jump in to quickly tell you about a new podcast

0:52

I've been working on, which is out now.

0:54

It's called Bern Wilde and

0:56

is presented by Lea Sottile. For

0:58

almost two years, we've been recording with

1:00

one of the world's most one fugitive

1:03

environmentalists. The FBI

1:05

say that he and the group he was a part of

1:07

are ecoterrorists. But

1:09

as with the missing crypto queen, things

1:11

have aren't what they've seen. So before

1:14

we get into Crypto Queen, here's a short

1:16

trailer and listen to the end of this episode

1:18

for a longer preview.

1:19

How many people

1:21

who have been on the FBI's most wanted

1:23

this? I ever sat down for a podcast

1:26

with the BBC.

1:27

For over a decade, a pair of

1:30

mug shots have lived side by side

1:32

on the FBI's website.

1:34

These individuals are considered

1:36

tariffs. In

1:37

two thousand five, they were called the number

1:39

one domestic terror threat in

1:41

America.

1:41

Estimates are a quarter billion dollars in

1:44

damages. The cause

1:44

of their alleged terrorist actions,

1:47

the environment. Our purpose

1:49

was direct action to

1:51

disrupt environmental traction.

1:54

How far is too far to go

1:56

to stop the planet burning?

1:57

If it's not me, then it's who. And

1:59

if it's not now and then it's wet and then it's wet and then

2:01

wet.

2:02

Bern Wild. Find us now

2:04

on BBC sounds.

2:07

BBC sounds, music, radio,

2:10

podcasts,

2:11

Quick warning before we begin. This

2:13

episode contains strong language.

2:21

Doctor

2:21

Rouge has been missing now for nearly

2:23

five years. But

2:25

far from fading into obscurity, It

2:27

feels like finding her is

2:29

more important than ever.

2:31

i'm an illusion

2:32

And now,

2:35

We're not the only ones looking for her.

2:41

allegedly cry cry investors

2:43

are more than four billion dollars. It's

2:45

been a while since the last episode, so

2:48

here's a quick reminder of where we

2:50

left off. In twenty

2:52

fourteen, doctor Ruja Ignatova

2:54

told investors that she'd created

2:56

a brand new cryptocurrency that

2:59

would make them all rich. She called

3:01

it one coin.

3:02

And I believe we are very special

3:04

network

3:06

because we really act as

3:08

a family.

3:09

By late twenty sixteen, doctor

3:11

Ruja was jetting around the world, addressing

3:14

her adoring fans. One

3:16

family.

3:16

You're amazing, guys.

3:19

And as many as a million

3:20

people from almost every country

3:23

on Earth, had invested billions

3:25

in her promise of a financial

3:27

revolution. Three goods. You

3:30

sold two goods. You

3:32

did that for one But

3:36

on the twenty fifth of October twenty

3:38

seventeen, as her investors were

3:40

waiting to turn their one coin into

3:42

dollars or euros, doctor Ruja

3:45

boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia

3:47

Bulgaria to Athens Greece. and

3:49

disappearing.

3:53

She

3:53

didn't react on the email, not on the WhatsApp,

3:56

or nothing, nothing helped. and

3:58

nobody knew where

3:59

to push up. One

4:02

coin was just an old fashioned

4:04

pyramid scheme. It

4:06

didn't have the underlying technology

4:08

needed to power a cryptocurrency. I

4:11

know they didn't have blockchain. They

4:13

couldn't have.

4:15

For four years, Georgia Cat and I have

4:17

been trying to expose the fake cryptocurrency

4:20

one coin and find out what happened

4:22

to its founder, doctor Ruja,

4:24

when she stepped off that Ryanair flight.

4:27

In twenty nineteen, we traveled

4:29

all over the world following leads.

4:31

Really, really well produced. It's

4:33

very slick. Hello?

4:35

Can I

4:37

ask who owns this boat? Mhmm. This

4:39

is

4:39

something I

4:42

know. Yeah. The cigar boat is pretty

4:44

overwhelming. We felt like

4:46

we'd got close. Possible. It's

4:48

possible that she could have been there.

4:50

Maybe closer than we realized. She

4:52

was there and missed one life sitting at

4:54

the table. If seen you without knowing it was

4:56

her, you were in the same room. And

4:58

since we released the podcast, Law

5:00

enforcement around the world has

5:02

finally started catching up with some

5:04

of doctor Rouge's sidekicks, including

5:08

her younger brother, Constantine. he's

5:10

currently detained in the US after

5:13

pleading guilty to money laundering

5:15

and fraud charges. But

5:17

doctor Ruja is still

5:19

on the run, possibly protected

5:21

by shadowy people and

5:23

vast amounts of cash. The

5:26

longer she has money, the

5:29

safer is ship.

5:31

It feels like the net is starting

5:33

to close in on the missing

5:35

Crypto Queen. The

5:37

question now is, who

5:39

will find her first is,

5:41

mister Habitsum. We have the plaintiff,

5:43

the doctor Ruja Ignatova.

5:45

We're not gonna stop looking for it. That's what it

5:47

comes down it. I think you need to start looking

5:49

at the very, very, very top of that

5:51

country. Eventually, I'm

5:53

confident we'll find it. I

5:56

I'm the person who ordered the Sesame

5:58

Cream.

6:02

This is the missing Crypto

6:04

Queen. Episode ten,

6:07

to do bio files.

6:15

So we just

6:15

get straight in there. Sure. Sure. Stop

6:17

talking brilliant. This is Esther

6:19

Creona, and I

6:21

have to include this bit She was

6:23

part of Israel's winning Eurovision

6:26

Song contest team in nineteen

6:28

seventy eight.

6:29

How

6:32

many people have ever worked abroad?

6:35

I've

6:35

never met a Eurovision song contestant.

6:38

Let alone a winner.

6:38

That's funny. After winning

6:40

Eurovision, Esther moved to

6:43

the US where she got married and

6:45

raised two children. In

6:47

twenty sixteen, her husband

6:49

passed away. And

6:49

my husband left me some money

6:52

after he passed away. This money

6:54

was supposed to be for

6:56

a condo or for

6:57

an apartment for myself or a townhouse

6:59

or something, you know, to to

7:01

be secure. So I

7:03

have roof over my

7:05

head. A

7:06

few months later, Ester's son

7:08

told her about an exciting new

7:11

cryptocurrency

7:12

called one coin.

7:13

I just listened to

7:15

my son and I decided to help him out.

7:18

And him and his friend convinced

7:20

me to invest in one coin.

7:23

And he simply believed

7:25

that one coin will be

7:27

the biggest, you know, crypto

7:31

in the world.

7:32

like

7:33

more

7:34

bigger than Bitcoin. Esther's

7:36

story

7:36

is like so many other one coin

7:38

investors we've heard making this series.

7:41

She was impressed by the crypto queen's

7:43

impeccable credentials and

7:45

drawn in by the prospect of a financial

7:47

revolution. plus

7:49

the chance of getting rich.

7:52

We listen to her all the time. We

7:54

read I mean, my son even

7:56

went there to Bulgaria.

7:58

Oh. Yeah. And he was at the

8:01

main office there. Right.

8:03

And he said nothing looks suspicious at

8:05

all.

8:06

What did you think of her? Kind

8:08

of admired her

8:10

and her the way she was

8:13

talking in the way she believed in

8:15

her dream and

8:17

I truly thought that she's

8:20

for real. Pretty

8:21

soon, Esther decided

8:23

to invest.

8:24

I put all together approximately

8:27

one hundred and forty

8:28

three thousand dollars

8:30

I

8:32

know. I

8:35

became a little greedy, I

8:37

guess. It

8:38

was only when Rouge's brother Constantine

8:40

was arrested in twenty nineteen.

8:43

The D'estaire realized she'd been

8:45

fooled. and that her money was

8:47

gone. What does it

8:49

sort of mean to you financially?

8:51

I

8:51

was losing my my big

8:53

house that I lived with my

8:56

husband and I had

8:58

to rent a year ago, I had to

9:00

rent a townhouse condo.

9:02

It

9:02

felt like death Absolutely. I

9:04

was so devastated. And

9:06

I had to start from from

9:08

a.

9:12

Many investors put everything they

9:14

had into one coin. Even

9:16

now years later, they're

9:18

still struggling with the loss. But

9:20

there is a glimmer of hope

9:22

for the victims. When

9:24

financial frauds like one coin

9:26

collapse, there are ways to get

9:28

some of the money back. The

9:30

key is to identify assets

9:32

or money that belong to the guilty

9:34

party which the authorities

9:36

can seize and return to

9:38

victims, but it's a

9:40

slow and difficult process. We

9:43

know Rugeo had plenty of houses,

9:45

cars, businesses, bank

9:47

accounts. The trouble is

9:49

she knew how to hide them The

9:52

money investors poured into one coin

9:54

has ended up in a web of

9:56

offshore accounts, fake owners, and

9:58

complicated corporate

9:59

structures. So along

10:02

with several other one coin investors,

10:04

Esther hired a lawyer to help

10:06

identify Rouge's assets around

10:08

the world in the hope she might

10:10

see some of her money again. The

10:12

best case scenario here, if

10:14

things go well, what are you hoping

10:17

to achieve with this lawsuit?

10:19

I hope to get some

10:21

of my money back. If

10:23

you cannot get everything all

10:25

of it, I I hope to get some of

10:27

it. Anything will be

10:29

helpful for me right now. And

10:31

there's more than just money at stake.

10:33

It feels

10:33

lousy. It feels really bad.

10:36

because that's the only money that I

10:38

had. And and she is,

10:40

like, living in, you know,

10:43

as a queen and I have to

10:45

fight

10:45

for my security.

10:49

A few

10:53

months back, a whistleblower who'd

10:55

listen to our podcast got in touch with

10:57

Ester's lawyers saying they had

10:59

confidential documents that might

11:01

help. These are the

11:03

Dubai files. We

11:05

were also sent them. They're

11:07

hundreds of pages, court

11:10

documents, bank letters, photographs,

11:13

A lot of them are in Arabic and most

11:15

are photocopies blurred

11:17

and poor quality as if someone

11:19

had to copy them in a rush. As

11:21

a

11:21

journalist, you sometimes receive

11:24

leaked documents like this and your

11:26

first job is to verify

11:28

them somehow so you know what you're

11:30

dealing with. That process has

11:32

taken us months, and we couldn't

11:34

verify everything. But we

11:36

spoke off record with at least some

11:38

of the people named in the Dubai files

11:40

and found and reviewed other public

11:42

documents like court records.

11:47

The

11:47

Dubai files appear to show

11:49

that Eurasia amassed tens of

11:51

millions of dollars in Dubai

11:53

bank accounts. money that

11:55

could still potentially go to

11:57

one coin investors like a

11:59

stare. And maybe these

12:01

files could offer us clues about

12:04

where doctor Ruja fled.

12:06

It

12:08

looks like her millions were

12:11

frozen because of money laundering concerns

12:13

two years before she vanished.

12:15

And in response, Rouge

12:18

has sought the help of an influential

12:20

shake. is

12:21

actually shipped out. Ben

12:23

Faisal, Ben Sultan, Ben

12:25

Salem, Al Qasimhi. Yep. Casimhi to

12:27

friends by me. That's fine.

12:29

This is Youssef Taha. He's a

12:31

BBC journalist and former Arabic

12:33

teacher who's helping us make sense of

12:35

the Dubai files. Al Qasami

12:37

are the royal family of Sachar.

12:40

Okay. And he's a chef as well. So

12:43

That's a region, Sachar

12:45

is one of the seven emperors of the

12:47

United Arab Emirates. it's a

12:49

confederation, the united arm emirates.

12:51

So it's seven emirates.

12:53

Each has its own emir,

12:55

our shaver. And

12:58

the capital of the United Arab Emirates

13:00

is Abu Dhabi. charger is one of

13:02

the not so rich, but

13:04

certainly not poorer Emirates.

13:06

what does it mean to be a shake of if

13:09

he's a shake and his family is

13:11

sort of the royal family, where does

13:13

that position him how powerful he be?

13:15

Right. very powerful.

13:17

All the shapes

13:20

of the seven United Arab

13:22

Emirates that related

13:24

somewhere in their

13:26

lineage. They are all related. But

13:28

if you're a shake in Sharjah,

13:30

you are you basically have

13:32

connections to all the government departments,

13:34

to the powerful people. You're you're someone that

13:36

can lie. The government has connections to

13:38

you. Right. And

13:40

if you haven't gone next just do that.

13:42

Yeah. You're just powerful and

13:44

whatever you say happens. According

13:49

to the Dubai files, In late

13:51

twenty fifteen, Ruger

13:53

handed over control of Onecoin

13:55

Limited to shake out Cassini along

13:57

with the Frozen Millions something

13:59

we think

13:59

she alluded to in an email

14:02

to a one coin colleague, which was

14:04

later read out in court.

14:05

I have a meeting next week with one of

14:08

the shakes in Dubai and we'll try to

14:10

get something done for us, but

14:12

we'll discuss with you only in

14:14

person and if I get

14:16

results. Could

14:17

the deal have been this? That

14:19

sheikal Cassini could take control

14:21

of the frozen money using

14:23

his influence to unlock the

14:25

cash. And what would Ruger get in

14:27

return? The

14:29

Dubai files suggest she might have received

14:31

millions in big coin,

14:33

but it's not clear.

14:36

Whatever it was, the Sheikh

14:38

soon wrote to Dubai's attorney general,

14:40

Vouching for Russia. Doctor Ruja

14:42

Ignatova is a distinguished international

14:45

businesswoman whose clients are

14:47

in millions worldwide. and

14:49

freezing her funds in the UAE

14:52

is an affront to her and will

14:54

tarnish her investment, economic,

14:56

and diplomatic experience. And

15:00

here's an even stranger thing.

15:02

In twenty twenty, so

15:04

two years after she disappeared,

15:07

and after the US had published an

15:09

indictment against her, Rouge's

15:11

millions were unfrozen by the

15:13

Dubai authorities. miller

15:15

had rough man raheem Since

15:19

then, there's been a long legal dispute

15:21

between Rubius lawyers and Sheikh

15:23

Al Qasimi and ultimately, it

15:25

appears to be over who

15:27

can claim the unfrozen millions.

15:30

Finally, in June twenty twenty

15:32

two, Shake Alkassemi one.

15:35

And

15:35

right now, we're still trying to

15:37

figure out what's happened to that

15:39

money. We've

15:40

asked Shake Al Qasimi multiple

15:42

times about his dealings with doctor

15:44

Ruja. His

15:45

lawyer told us, you do

15:46

not have any correct information on

15:49

the subject. With

15:50

so much of her money tied up

15:53

there, the files led us to

15:55

an obvious question.

15:57

Could

15:57

doctor Ruja be

15:59

hiding

15:59

in Dubai?

16:08

After

16:08

Ruger vanished, Constantine Ignatov

16:11

took over the running of one coin from his

16:13

big sister he couldn't have

16:15

been more different. For

16:17

one thing, Constantine is covered

16:19

in tattoos and is a tea

16:21

total vegan. as

16:23

Ruger traveled the world selling one

16:25

coin. He was driving a

16:27

forklift truck and a Porsche factory

16:29

in Germany Konstantin

16:31

didn't know anything about cryptocurrency,

16:34

finance, or multi level marketing.

16:36

He preferred spending time

16:38

listening to heavy metal. working

16:40

out and looking

16:41

after stray dogs. Rougea

16:44

originally hired her brother as a

16:46

personal assistant where he mostly

16:48

booked hotels and ordered

16:50

luxury jewelry. But

16:51

soon after her disappearance, Constantine

16:54

was giving talks and crooting

16:56

investors just like his sister.

16:59

Here he is in

17:01

Argentina in twenty

17:03

eighteen. whole world

17:05

is watching today. More than

17:07

three million people from the network

17:10

and all of the people outside who don't

17:12

like us. Also watching Konstantin

17:18

was arrested in twenty nineteen

17:20

at Los Angeles Airport. After

17:22

initially claiming he'd done nothing wrong,

17:24

he eventually plead guilty to

17:26

multiple charges, including fraud,

17:29

and money laundering and agreed to

17:32

work with the US authorities as a

17:34

witness in any one coin

17:36

related court cases. And in late twenty

17:38

nineteen, Constantine was

17:40

in court in New York testifying

17:42

against Mark Scott Ruge's

17:45

investment manager who was on trial for

17:47

money laundering. So after going through

17:49

the Dubai files, Georgia and

17:51

I trolled back through Constantine's testimony

17:54

looking for clues. We

17:57

figured if anyone knew where doctor

17:59

Ruja went after Athens, it

18:01

was Constantine. When was the last

18:03

time that you saw Two days before

18:05

she disappeared. When was the last time that

18:07

you communicated with her in any

18:09

way? The day she disappeared.

18:11

But Constantine did let slip that Rouge had bought a

18:14

mansion in Dubai. You mentioned a moment

18:16

ago that Rouge had also bought properties in

18:18

Dubai. Is that correct? Yes.

18:21

did you ever visit either of those properties?

18:23

I spent one night in the penthouse

18:26

and I've seen the mansion, but

18:28

it was still under construction,

18:30

so it wasn't finished yet.

18:32

Do you know approximately how much the

18:34

mansion cost? I heard

18:36

her talking about twenty million.

18:38

A mansion

18:40

in Dubai seems like the perfect

18:42

place for Russia to lay low.

18:45

and still enjoy the high

18:47

life.

18:48

Constantine who is currently at some

18:50

unknown location in the US in

18:52

a waiting sentencing wouldn't or couldn't

18:55

talk to us. So how

18:57

do you

18:57

find a house in a city of three

18:59

point five million people?

19:01

when all you have to go on is the word

19:04

mansion and a price.

19:06

So yeah, it

19:07

was it was a bit of a a mission to talk through

19:09

a middle. So introduce you to

19:11

Rob, our new team member. He's

19:14

a journalist who's brilliant of

19:16

finding out stuff that dodgy people

19:18

don't want you to know. So we thought, oh, perhaps,

19:21

they met, although he denied

19:23

meeting her since she since she

19:25

disappeared in court. The first thing he did was

19:27

to look through all of

19:29

Constantine's social media accounts, looking

19:31

for photos that might offer some

19:33

clues about Dubai and this mysterious mansion.

19:37

So I just started looking through his

19:39

prolific social media accounts or

19:41

they were prolific until he

19:43

was arrested. And on Instagram, there was

19:45

a post at his

19:47

birthday on the fifteenth of February

19:49

twenty eighteen. February twenty

19:51

eighteen. That's five months

19:53

after Ruger disappeared. He says,

19:55

just woke up and already have two

19:57

hundred plus messages. You crazy guys,

19:59

birthday mode on, hashtag selfie hashtag

20:02

me. Hashtag where they have the Tumi

20:04

hashtag. It's a selfie. It's

20:06

tagged in Bulgaria. But the

20:08

background of the photograph did

20:10

not look like Bulgaria, certainly not in the middle

20:12

of winter. So It just doesn't

20:14

look right. It just looks weird. Yeah. There's like

20:16

a big skyline. Skyscrapers the

20:18

background. There's a palm tree and possibly a

20:21

mosque in Minaret, so it looked kind of Middle

20:23

Eastern. And it just just

20:24

didn't add up. So we needed some help

20:27

basically. Hi, everyone. My name

20:29

is Ayun Miroi, so I'm an open

20:31

source investigative journalist.

20:33

Ayun is a very special

20:35

type of journalist. He

20:37

for BBCI investigations on

20:40

something called open source

20:42

intelligence. All of us

20:44

share so much information about

20:46

ourselves on line, and people

20:48

like I am are able to take that

20:50

information and make sense of

20:52

it. His particular skill

20:54

is to work out precisely where

20:57

and when photos and videos

20:59

were taken. So

21:00

basically, just spending hours on

21:03

Internet googling stuff

21:05

to verify content. You just kind of follow the

21:08

breadcrumbs, writes the sort of digital breadcrumbs,

21:10

and you find as much elements

21:12

as possible. to be

21:14

hundred and fifty percent sure that you've got it

21:15

right. Robsen I

21:17

am Constantine's Instagram

21:20

post. There was one

21:21

handy clue a

21:23

building in

21:23

the far distance that looked a bit

21:26

like a bottle opener. It was a

21:28

long

21:28

shot, but check out what

21:30

I am did with one

21:32

photo.

21:33

took a screenshot

21:35

of the bottom up in

21:37

the building and she started like, oh, hey,

21:39

if we can do image

21:41

with a search. Take the image, put

21:43

it into search engines, try to

21:45

see if you find other image

21:48

with the same elements, with the same characters, with

21:50

the same buildings. First, I thought

21:52

it'll be easy, you know, there's a DynaScast Gripen,

21:55

it's a big city By the

21:57

evening, I have something for robe. But by

21:59

the evening, I didn't

21:59

have something for robe, and that's

22:02

where, you know, you need to be patient.

22:04

And you know, stop breathing and

22:07

diving. You know, spend

22:09

hours digging through, one after a

22:11

couple of hours of of digging through. that was

22:13

an image which had a building in

22:15

it that looked very similar and that

22:17

image was basically a thumbnail for

22:19

YouTube video. And in the background of

22:22

that video, you could see a building that will crack the

22:24

photo opener we had in the

22:26

image of Constantine. Get

22:28

like a buzz when you get that

22:30

match? Are you like, yes. Right. Here we go.

22:32

We're on it. Not an absolute

22:34

buzz, like a a tiny buzz.

22:37

I got a little kind of start off a bus. You could

22:39

say like, oh, I'm on the right track,

22:41

a mini bus. Except something

22:43

didn't add up. but it was a

22:45

big problem. The line of

22:48

skyscrapers and the order of the buildings I

22:50

could see in that YouTube

22:52

video was not matching The

22:54

buildings look like they were

22:56

in reverse order and that kind

22:58

of bothered me for for quite

23:00

a while

23:01

until every guy's weight constant

23:03

in image is a selfie. If

23:05

it's a

23:05

selfie, I'm seeing a mirror of

23:08

what the human eye would have

23:10

seen. And so I feed image and there,

23:12

boom, of skylight was

23:14

perfectly matching in terms

23:15

of order. We're on the right track

23:17

to find it. to

23:20

get a mini buzz. I think that's where

23:22

the the big buzz came in exactly. Then

23:25

he

23:25

tried to work out the rough distance

23:27

and possible eye line

23:29

from where the photo was taken. So we

23:31

got

23:31

the Minera and we got that

23:33

pond of water. We could

23:36

start matching specific elements

23:38

in constant Then he used Google

23:40

Earth to identify other

23:42

smaller features in constant in

23:44

photo. trying to narrow it down

23:46

and down. And there is one element that's

23:48

actually you can even spot from satellite

23:50

images in constant image in

23:53

the background like a sort of waterfall

23:55

thing pushing maybe around ninety nine percent

23:57

should have got it. But I want to look

23:59

for more That's

24:00

where I kind of came across a gold mine listener,

24:02

dear listener. He's actually

24:04

matched

24:04

little stains on the wall from

24:07

the Constantine photo. until

24:12

Mine, I can say for sure enough. This

24:14

is where it's with the image at a

24:16

hundred and fifty percent.

24:18

In

24:20

the springs

24:22

one,

24:23

in Dubai. What? I thought

24:25

you were gonna say, I think it's Dubai.

24:27

He didn't just say Dubai.

24:29

He gave us the full

24:32

address.

24:32

and no one else has said this. You know,

24:34

nobody knows where this is. This

24:36

is

24:36

unbelievable. And I cannot believe

24:39

we've got this far, but now

24:41

we've got to decide what do we do? Now we got

24:43

an address in Dubai. We can't just turn up and knock

24:45

on the door. Yeah. And

24:47

that's that's a whole another

24:49

problem. This

24:51

could be anyone's

24:54

property, of course.

24:56

Maybe comp and Tim just

24:58

rented it from Airbnb.

25:00

Or maybe he was just

25:02

staying with an old friend, but

25:04

I am found something else.

25:06

He

25:07

trolled through some old real

25:09

estate websites and found

25:12

out that this property was on the

25:14

market in twenty sixteen

25:16

for seventeen million Emirati

25:18

deer homes, roughly the same amount

25:21

Constantine gave in court.

25:23

for

25:23

how much Ruger paid for her

25:26

mansion. Even

25:27

so, it

25:28

could still be a coincidence.

25:30

but

25:30

then we managed to get hold of an old

25:33

Dubai property database and

25:35

ran the address through that.

25:37

Before

25:37

I tell you what we found, Let

25:40

me remind you of another key character

25:42

in this story. Let's

25:43

give a warm

25:47

applause for our creator,

25:49

our founder, our lovely

25:53

doctor Ruja. The

25:55

voice introducing Ruja on

25:57

age at London's Wembley Arena in twenty

25:59

sixteen was Sebastian Greenwood.

26:03

He

26:03

co founded one coin with Ruja,

26:08

Sebastian, who's a British Swedish

26:10

national, is a gifted

26:12

salesman in his mid forties with

26:14

a long history in multilevel marketing.

26:18

Sebastian knew how to work

26:20

a crowd. Here he is a

26:22

frenzied one coin event in Malaysia in

26:25

twenty seventeen.

26:33

Sebastian

26:33

and Russia probably met

26:35

in twenty thirteen where they came

26:37

up with the idea for one coin together.

26:43

His one email from Ruger to

26:45

Sebastian just a few

26:47

weeks before the company was

26:49

launched. You

26:49

as the magic sales machine

26:52

and me as someone who really can work

26:54

with numbers, legal, and back you

26:56

up in a good and professional way. we

26:58

could really make it big, like

27:00

MLM meets bit of Wall

27:02

Street. It was rumored

27:04

that Ruzia and Sebastian were more

27:06

than just business partners According

27:08

to some, they were lovers

27:11

too. In

27:11

twenty eighteen, around a

27:13

year after Russia vanished, Sebastien was

27:16

arrested in Thailand and extradited

27:18

to the US where he's

27:20

currently in prison awaiting trial.

27:22

some of the people were here speaking

27:24

to IAM about the house,

27:26

the property, and Dubai.

27:29

So back to our war room, which

27:31

is my garden, where we're trying

27:33

to figure out who owns this

27:36

property. This

27:36

databases. So it's got people's contact details, their

27:39

names. Some of it is like limited companies.

27:41

But I reckon eighty percent of this

27:43

database was people's real names and

27:45

it was split into all the different

27:47

regions. That's a massive amount. For

27:49

a lot. Yeah. Rob knows you're

27:51

a lot because you've

27:52

been looking through them. Yeah. Look you

27:54

may. So, eventually, I

27:55

see by matching the geolocation that I

27:58

had the right plot eventually. Right. And that

27:59

then gave you what. That

28:02

then gave me the name of the owner,

28:05

which is Sebastian

28:08

Greenwood. Yeah.

28:08

The co founder, of one

28:10

coin, founder of one coin.

28:14

Sebastian

28:15

was named as a co

28:17

director on a firm, Ruger

28:20

used to buy a five thousand

28:22

square foot penthouse in

28:24

Dubai in the exclusive Palm

28:26

Jumira area. That's the one

28:28

Constantine also mentioned in court.

28:30

We don't quite know what's really

28:32

going on with the mansion, but

28:34

it feels like a strong lead.

28:37

a new address. Now, we

28:39

need to decide what to do.

28:44

If it

28:46

was

28:46

the UK, we would

28:48

have just

28:48

turned up and knocked on

28:51

the door. But advisers at the

28:53

BBC told us we shouldn't

28:55

go there in person. If

28:57

Russia was well connected in Dubai

29:00

as journalists we could find

29:02

ourselves in some trouble. We

29:04

found out the mansion

29:06

itself was part of an exclusive gated

29:09

community with its own security

29:11

staff. We were

29:12

stumped, and we were

29:15

getting hungry. Hi.

29:18

It's Steven here for the Krispy

29:20

Krembs. We might not be able to go to

29:22

the mansion, but we could

29:24

send a food delivery to

29:26

see if anyone's home. Now to make sure

29:28

we weren't getting the delivery person into

29:31

any trouble, we decided to

29:33

pretend

29:33

it was a wrong address

29:36

and not ever mention Ruja,

29:39

Sebastian, or

29:39

my name. Forty two

29:42

AED. No.

29:42

It can't be that cheap. Can't it? or do you

29:44

pull out one doughnut? You didn't take

29:47

him. Well, he's not gonna help us

29:49

now with this. What do you think is gonna

29:51

happen? No one in. Oh,

29:53

he's there. He's there. He suddenly

29:55

got there. It's the kind of thing that the

29:57

FBI would do just before they bust your door

29:59

down, it isn't it? Should I call

30:01

him? Has he been enough time middling

30:04

around? I'm

30:05

the person who

30:07

ordered the Krispy Krembs.

30:09

Did you find the house? Have

30:12

you tried to knock on the door?

30:19

is there nobody in?

30:21

Thanks for trying, I guess. Just

30:23

keep the doughnuts.

30:25

All we

30:26

wanted to do at this point was find

30:29

out if anyone lives there.

30:31

We reached out to Sebastian Greenwood

30:33

via his attorneys to ask about

30:36

the mansion could Ruggia have visited, does he still

30:38

own it? They didn't reply.

30:40

We also wrote to Constantine's lawyers

30:42

about his visit to the property,

30:45

but they didn't get back to us either. We tried

30:47

people living nearby. They told

30:49

us someone was still living in

30:52

the mansion, but no one had seen a

30:54

person resembling RougeA.

30:56

We

30:56

also spoke to a former FBI

30:58

agent called Karen Greenoway,

31:00

Now she

31:01

hasn't worked on the one coin case,

31:03

but knows a lot about

31:05

tracking criminals to Dubai. I can tell

31:07

you from personal experience, you really

31:09

were worked very hard to try

31:11

to build relationships with

31:14

UAE law enforcement authorities to

31:17

address the situation where we

31:19

had, you know, particularly transnational organized

31:21

crime criminals who are going to

31:23

UAE and hanging out, and I can tell you

31:25

that we've got zero

31:28

zero assistance.

31:29

We're working on a sort of theory

31:32

of our own here thatclusion may

31:34

have been living in Dubai

31:36

in in in early two thousand and

31:38

eighteen. Now if

31:40

she were, is it

31:42

possible that both the Dubai authorities

31:45

and the FBI would have been

31:48

aware of this fact, but

31:50

neither were able to do well. The

31:52

FBI weren't able and the Dubai

31:54

authorities weren't interested in

31:56

doing anything about it.

31:58

Absolutely. It's

32:00

entirely possible that the FBI knew

32:03

that she was there. And then on flip I

32:05

have no doubt that the Dubai authorities

32:07

knew that she was there because, again, they

32:09

do have this very you

32:11

know, on on technologically oriented,

32:15

you know, surveillance state.

32:18

We asked Dubai's government if

32:20

they had any evidence of Russian living in

32:22

the Emirates or if they received any

32:25

requests from the US relating to

32:27

her. but

32:27

they did not

32:30

reply. We've been

32:32

monitoring the mansion for the last few

32:35

months. and it looks like

32:37

Rugeo probably isn't there. But

32:39

the property still is.

32:41

And that's something because if we're

32:43

right about the mansion, the authorities

32:45

could seize it, sell it,

32:47

and give the proceeds back to

32:49

people like Esther. We're going

32:51

to keep checking in there and

32:53

keep you updated if anything changes. I

32:56

hope it does, but it's frustrating

32:58

because every time we

33:00

think we're getting closer, we

33:02

seem to hit a dead end. And

33:05

then as we're starting to lose

33:07

hope, the authorities

33:08

suddenly kick

33:10

into gear. First,

33:11

in May twenty twenty two,

33:14

Europul adds doctor

33:15

Ruger to its list of most

33:18

wanted criminals at the request of the German

33:20

police.

33:20

Update eleventh May

33:23

twenty twenty

33:23

two. Ignativa Ruger

33:26

wanted, crime fraud,

33:28

approximate height, a hundred and sixty

33:30

three centimeters,

33:31

eye color, brown, date of birth,

33:33

May thirty, nineteen eighty, nationality,

33:36

German, spoken languages, Hungarian,

33:39

English, German, reward payment, five

33:40

thousand euros. Caution. The

33:42

one to person possible persons accompanying

33:45

her might be armed. And

33:48

a

33:49

few weeks late Peter. There's even

33:52

bigger news. Let's now go out to

33:54

New York here and listen to

33:56

the FBI. In a press

33:58

conference broadcast live

34:00

on Fox News, the FBI's Michael Driscoll

34:03

announced they were adding doctor

34:05

Ruja to their list of

34:07

the top ten most wanted fugitives. We

34:09

ask that anyone who has

34:11

information about Ignatov's whereabouts to

34:13

call us. The FBI gave

34:15

little away about their

34:18

litigation, but this still felt like the

34:20

most significant moment since

34:22

Russia disappeared. We're

34:24

gonna make every effort we can not gonna stop

34:26

looking for. That's what it comes down to.

34:29

Eventually, I'm confident we'll

34:31

find it. It really felt

34:32

quite surreal to be honest. There

34:36

was Rouge's face, a face I'd

34:38

studied for so long, the

34:40

perfect styled hair and the signature

34:42

red lipstick. alongside cartel

34:44

leaders and alleged murderers with

34:46

a one hundred thousand dollar

34:48

reward on offer for information leading

34:51

to her

34:54

arrest.

35:00

And it wasn't long before our

35:02

missing Crypto coin inbox started

35:04

filling up again with new tip

35:06

offs, new

35:08

sightings. This one's really weird.

35:10

A silver Aston Martin was being driven

35:12

around London. It does look a bit lighter,

35:14

right? It's got the hair, the kind of

35:16

lips, Like, it looks like

35:18

it could be her. And then the weird bit about

35:20

it is that the number plate is,

35:23

like, pretty

35:23

significant

35:24

name. It's quite

35:26

similar.

35:26

Some people over in Thailand seem absolutely

35:30

certain that she's hiding in a mansion

35:32

there with another promoter

35:34

like a

35:36

former one coin promoter. We had someone get in

35:38

touch. They

35:40

claim to have seen her

35:44

in grief. and it was in a beach bar near

35:46

thessaloniki, which is a part

35:48

of Greece that Ruja has

35:50

connections to.

35:52

And as we were investigating these new leads,

35:54

a person we'd first written to in

35:56

prison months earlier got back

35:58

to us. And to our surprise,

36:00

surprise agreed to

36:01

talk. So in late August

36:03

twenty twenty two, Rob and

36:05

I took a last minute

36:07

flight to Luxembourg. situations

36:10

change, and then suddenly it's in a person's

36:12

interest to talk. It's And then

36:14

with repeat it. Would you show

36:16

up? I

36:18

spent so long reading about him. I've spent so long talking about

36:20

him. I've spent so long writing about

36:22

him that that

36:24

I've never met him.

36:27

is it? Should we just jump out of here? We mustn't be close

36:29

either way, aren't we?

36:30

Alright. Good luck,

36:33

everybody. Frank Schneider. the former top spy

36:35

who became Rouge's trusted security adviser

36:38

and who is currently fighting

36:40

extradition to

36:42

the US. agreed to

36:44

speak

36:45

to us. Are you

36:47

wearing an ankle bracelet? Yes. I've got

36:49

used to it. It's, you know, that's one

36:51

of those things. Right. It would alert if

36:53

I would leave the premises.

36:56

So that's what it does. So it would

36:58

alert the authorities that I

37:00

would violate

37:02

conditional release conditions, and that would probably

37:04

get me straight back into jail.

37:06

Frank seems to know more

37:10

about Russia. than anyone else we've spoken to on this

37:12

podcast. He's the first person to

37:13

give us an account of what

37:16

happened to

37:18

Russia after she landed in Athens on the twenty fifth of

37:20

October twenty seventeen. She called

37:22

me and she said, hi, everything's fine.

37:25

I'm in Athens. which chatted a bit, nothing

37:27

strange. Other than her bodyguard

37:30

told her that he was told

37:32

he was given instructions to

37:34

leave and travel

37:36

back to Sophia. According to her, he gave her

37:38

a ticket to fly to

37:40

Tesaluniki. The

37:42

security was

37:44

organized by I don't know exactly who, but by someone

37:47

else. And so she

37:50

laughed about this. I

37:52

said, well, I thought you are the

37:54

boss, and and and he just left you.

37:56

And she sort of said, yes, I I always

37:58

thought I am the boss too,

37:59

but he's gone. And so

38:02

what what are you what are you going to do now? She's

38:04

sitting in Athens. She's sitting in

38:06

Athens airport. Yeah. And

38:08

she says, what does a

38:10

girl do when a girl is

38:12

bored? And I said, well, I

38:14

guess you go shopping.

38:16

Yes. I will go shopping now. And

38:18

so off she went, and that was the end of that call.

38:20

A few hours later, she called back

38:22

again, and she was in Tesaluniki.

38:26

She said, nobody was

38:28

waiting for her. However,

38:30

she got a text saying that some

38:32

people will arrive. They are delayed and

38:34

they'll come I have my dinner and then around eleven o'clock,

38:36

eleven, eleven thirty, twelve, I don't

38:38

know midnight. She called

38:40

and she was in

38:42

a car. She said that she was on the

38:44

way back to Bulgaria. I only

38:46

got one text, which was around two

38:48

o'clock in

38:50

the morning, in English that

38:52

said home safe. Now one

38:54

has to understand, I only

38:56

spoke German

38:58

to her and we

39:00

text it in German. So

39:02

I found his home

39:04

safe immediately, slightly bizarre, but she

39:06

would say, this in in English home

39:09

safe. And that was the

39:11

last I ever received from any

39:13

of her devices from the next day

39:15

on, the phones were off. that never

39:17

happened.

39:17

I believe that she's not

39:20

missing that that whatever's

39:22

happened to her, I feel that

39:25

that it's not under her

39:28

control. Next

39:33

time the

39:34

missing Crypto queen, more

39:36

on her disappearance. And that's

39:38

not the only thing Frank tells us.

39:41

She certainly didn't need me

39:43

to carry out the dirty

39:45

work that she wanted carrying

39:47

out. Within Bulgaria, there

39:50

were certainly very powerful and very different resources to get

39:52

hold of this kind of information. The

39:54

kind of information Frank

39:56

hands us on a memory

39:58

stick. I do have the documents and I have

39:59

them here and I give them to you. And I think you need

40:02

to stop looking at the very, very,

40:04

very top of that country. A memory stick

40:06

not

40:06

only with documents, but recordings

40:08

he says were made by doctor

40:10

Ruja. They run from

40:13

fourth of October. over through to the twenty fourth

40:15

day before she disappears. They're

40:18

both recording the calls. What's the

40:20

drama? You can,

40:22

like, just stuffy, though. Can't you? Do you think any of it gives

40:24

us any clues? Does

40:26

any of it tell us anything? Yeah.

40:28

There's a few things. I

40:32

really worry about you. Like, is there

40:34

anything that you

40:35

can tell me or whatever? I don't

40:37

know. Are you okay?

40:48

Remember, if you have information

40:49

about doctor Ruja you'd like to share

40:51

with us, you can

40:54

reach us at crypto

40:56

queen at BBC dot co dot

40:58

u k. Or you could

41:00

go to the FBI. Thank

41:02

you to those who've already been in touch

41:04

with us, and we'll be checking our

41:07

email daily. The

41:10

missing crypto queen was presented by

41:12

me, Jamie Bartlett, It was

41:14

written by me and Rob

41:16

Byrne. The producers were Georgia Cat

41:18

and Rob Byrne. The series

41:20

producer is

41:22

Georgia Cat. The music, which is very nice to hear

41:24

again, is by Phil Channel and

41:26

Desi Salva, Stefanover, and the

41:28

London Bulgarian

41:30

choir. The

41:31

commissioner is Dylan Hoskins. series editor is

41:33

Philip

41:33

Sellars. This is a BBC

41:35

documentary production for

41:38

BBC sounds and BBC

41:40

five

41:42

live. How

41:56

many people who have been on the FBI's

41:58

most wanted

41:59

this, have ever sat down for a

42:02

podcast with the BBC.

42:04

I think

42:04

about, like, how many people have

42:07

been murdered how many people have been

42:09

brutally tortured. And how did I

42:11

get on the most wanted people in

42:13

the entire country of

42:16

the United its states. For over a

42:18

decade, a pair

42:18

of mug shots have

42:20

lived side by side on FBI's

42:24

website

42:24

on its list of America's

42:26

most wanted domestic terrorists. The

42:28

FBI is offering a reward of

42:30

up to fifty thousand dollars for

42:32

information leading to the rest of each of these individuals. The US government says they

42:35

were

42:35

a part of a movement whose

42:37

reign of intimidation and fear

42:39

was so great. that

42:41

in two thousand five, they were called the number

42:44

one domestic terror threat in

42:46

America. In a way

42:48

you look

42:48

at it, these individuals are

42:50

considered as terrorists. Their names Joseph

42:53

Mahmoud Abe and Josephine To

42:56

the Sunshine

42:58

Show break. because of

43:00

their alleged terrorist actions,

43:02

the environment. And now,

43:04

one of them has

43:05

been caught. Do you

43:08

think we could talk to him? I mean,

43:10

him. Absolutely. this by him?

43:11

Absolutely. Yeah. For the

43:12

moment, they started, like, we're gonna

43:14

put you prison for thirty five years while

43:16

that was pretty serious and it

43:19

hasn't really relented any.

43:22

I'm

43:22

Leah Sottile. And for the past

43:24

eighteen months, as Joe Debei's case

43:26

goes through the court, I've been trying

43:28

to

43:28

understand who the two fugitive ego

43:31

terrorists really are. beyond those mug

43:33

shots. 0II think they would

43:35

be heroes. And what the

43:37

truth is about

43:38

a group known as the Earth liberation.

43:42

front. A myth.

43:45

No way. Answer

43:47

it will take us

43:50

into radical

43:52

active his communities

43:53

passed and present on both sides of the Atlantic. How

43:55

do you deal with these massive,

43:57

like, environmental problems? You

43:59

I

43:59

thought it was necessary. You know, it was

44:02

necessary to take such drastic

44:03

action. In my work on

44:06

extremism,

44:06

I've covered a lot of stories

44:09

about the are right, why people resort

44:11

to violence, commit actions that

44:13

leave people dead, and how

44:15

society responds to

44:17

that. In this story, it doesn't quite fit

44:19

that mold. The

44:21

terrorist label being

44:26

applied to activists who very explicitly

44:28

take kind of extreme measures to

44:30

ensure that no one is

44:32

injured.

44:32

I

44:33

think it reveals

44:35

the priorities of our government.

44:37

To the authorities, those

44:39

two fugitives and the group they

44:41

were a

44:41

part of are

44:44

violent extremists. I think

44:46

it would have continued

44:48

escalate. To their supporters, their

44:50

warriors. Law of us were hearing

44:52

about what was happened. lot

44:54

of

44:54

us were excited about. People

44:56

will take away very different things

44:58

on what they hear. You could

45:00

have been blown apart, you know. I mean, for people would. But

45:02

where you sit on what

45:04

they did isn't a question of

45:06

what happened in the past.

45:08

No matter how long this takes, we're gonna stop the Dakota Axis

45:11

pipeline. Huge plumes of smoke

45:13

rose above London as

45:15

grass fires engulfed homes. Last year, the

45:18

temperature has got to a hundred and

45:20

fifteen degrees. A bunch of farm workers

45:22

here die. So this is the thing why

45:23

they didn't die. they were

45:26

killed. There's a real

45:28

biting sense at the minute that things

45:30

are

45:30

reaching ahead reaching ahead.

45:33

at

45:33

the heart of this story is a question

45:35

being asked again

45:36

right now. Maybe there are

45:38

more people who really want to do what

45:41

is necessary to make change. I don't know

45:43

what that is either. How

45:44

far is too far to go to

45:46

stop the planet burning? If it's

45:49

not me, then it's who. You know? And if it's not me,

45:51

then it's when. He

45:52

he tried to destroy

45:53

our lives, that's what they accomplished

45:55

in my view.

45:58

Bernwild

45:58

starting September

45:59

sixth on BBC

46:01

sounds or wherever you

46:03

get your podcasts.

46:04

yeah

46:08

For over

46:10

a decade,

46:14

a

46:14

pair of

46:18

mug shots have lived side by side on the FBI's

46:20

website. These

46:20

individuals are considered as terrorists.

46:23

The cause of their

46:24

alleged terrorists actions, the environment.

46:27

Estimates

46:27

are a quarter billion dollars

46:29

in damages. How far is too far

46:31

to go to stop the planet burning?

46:33

If it's not me,

46:36

then to move this lot

46:38

now. Burn Wild. Find

46:40

us wherever you get

46:42

your podcasts.