Transcript

EP 62 - Ghosts in the Blockchain · 3 Crimes That Are Still Unsolved

HOST: Tonight, three fortunes vanished into code, and the people behind them are still ghosts. [SFX: scary digital glitch] HOST: First: Ruja Ignatova, the “Cryptoqueen.” In 2017, after selling OneCoin as the next Bitcoin, she boarded a flight from Sofia to Athens and disappeared. Prosecutors call it a four-billion-dollar fraud. The FBI still wants her. [AD_BREAK:1] HOST: Next: QuadrigaCX. Founder Gerald Cotten died in India in 2018, allegedly holding the only passwords to about 190 million dollars in customer crypto. Auditors found fake accounts, missing coins, and years of suspicious transfers. Dead man, or perfect exit? [SFX: confused static burst] [AD_BREAK:2] HOST: Finally: Africrypt. In 2021, South African brothers Ameer and Raees Cajee told clients the platform was hacked. Then they vanished, and so did billions in claimed Bitcoin value. They denied wrongdoing through lawyers. Investors got silence. [SFX: loud vault slam] [AD_BREAK:3] HOST: Three digital vaults. Three trails gone cold. And somewhere, maybe, the keys still exist.