An author from Scotland has been targeted for her work to expose one of crypto history’s most notorious Ponzi schemes, Onecoin. Jennifer McAdam recently canceled book signings after receiving death threats for writing about the massive fraud and its ‘Cryptoqueen’ mastermind.
Writer Cancels Promotional Events for Book on Onecoin on Advice From Scottish Police and FBI
Author Jennifer McAdam has been forced to cancel a promotional tour for her book ‘Devil’s Coin’ exposing the crypto pyramid Onecoin which defrauded millions of investors around the world, the Scottish Sun newspaper reported.
McAdam writes about Onecoin’s founder Ruja Ignatova, dubbed the “missing Cryptoqueen” as she is still wanted by Interpol, Europol, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which put it on its ten most-wanted fugitives list.
The writer’s decision came after police in Scotland as well as the FBI advised her against carrying out planned signings in Irvine, Ayr and Glasgow for the book devoted to her battle to take down the Ponzi scheme. This week, she was quoted by the Scottish tabloid as saying:
I am upset that my events have had to be cancelled but I did not want to go ahead in the light of the potential dangers highlighted to me.
At the same time, McAdam thanked her “brave publishers around the world” who she said would not be intimidated. “I feel it is a triumph on their part allowing me to tell my story and those of the thousands of victims of a despicable fraud.”
The publication reveals that Jennifer McAdam has faced online abuse for her efforts to secure justice for the victims that could be coming from people who benefited from the scam. The book’s publisher, Ad Lib, confirmed the cancelation due to “serious security concerns” and said:
Since taking on the fugitive Onecoin Cryptoqueen Ruja Ignatova, she has suffered a campaign of intimidation, including legal challenges, death threats and vile online abuse.
Onecoin was launched in 2014 as a multi-level marketing network based on a fake cryptocurrency with the same name. It is believed to have defrauded more than 3 million investors globally of over $4 billion, based on its own documents.
The crypto pyramid’s mastermind, Bulgarian-born German national Ruja Ignatova, was last seen on Oct. 25, 2017, at the airport in Athens, Greece, where she arrived on a flight from the Bulgarian capital Sofia. In July, 2022, the Greek press reported that the local police had tried to locate her after receiving information she was in the country. A Bulgarian media report suggested in February of this year that she may have been killed in Greece a year after her disappearance.
In 2019, the Cryptoqueen’s brother and Onecoin co-founder, Konstantin Ignatov, was arrested in the United States where he pleaded guilty to Onecoin-related charges and sought witness protection. Another co-founder, citizen of Sweden and the U.K. Karl Sebastian Greenwood pleaded guilty in December 2022.
Do you think that those who benefited from the crypto scam Onecoin are behind the threats on Scottish author Jennifer McAdam? Share your thoughts on the case in the comments section below.
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