A $5m (£4m) reward is being offered in the hunt for the fugitive “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova.
Bulgarian-born Ignatova, who has German citizenship, has been on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list since 2022 for fraud and money laundering.
The 43-year-old is accused of defrauding investors out of $4bn (£3.3bn) by selling a fake cryptocurrency called OneCoin, founded in Sofia in 2014.
The US agency, which has called OneCoin “one of the largest global fraud schemes in history”, previously offered a $100,000 (£82,463) reward for information leading to her capture.
However, that has now been raised to £4m.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor said on Wednesday that the country will press charges against Ignatova, who disappeared in late 2017.
“She will also be charged in absentia in our country, which will allow the start of a procedure for the confiscation of her illegally acquired property,” he said.
The FBI believes she could be using a German passport to travel to countries such as the UAE, Russia, Greece and Easter Europe.
Ignatova’s last known movements were taking a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens on 25 October 2017 and some believe she may have been murdered by powerful figures in the Bulgarian mafia.
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