Regina Non Vocavit
My new Latin motto, and why I am so proud of it.
Dateline: Woking, 3rd September 2024.
You’re probably heard about The Missing Cryptoqueen. It was one of the best podcasts of all time, a BBC series that explored the story of Dr Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian-born German entrepreneur who founded a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme known as OneCoin, which The Times has described as "one of the biggest scams in history”.
OneScam
Ignatova co-founded OneCoin in 2014, marketing it as a cryptocurrency despite it having no actual underlying “crypto” technology such as a blockchain. The scheme was promoted as a high-return investment opportunity, where profits were mainly supposed to come from new participants buying into the system rather than any legitimate business or mining activities (i.e., a Ponzi scheme).
She and her associates claimed that OneCoin would be the "Bitcoin killer" and conducted lavish promotional events worldwide to attract investors. They managed to raise billions of dollars globally. The scheme promised users big returns and encouraged them to sell the currency to others in order to make a profit. However, the currency had no real value and could not be used to buy anything. Moreover, the promised OneCoin exchange that would allow users to convert their digital "coins" into traditional currency never materialised.
In 2017, authorities began catching on to the scam, leading to various international investigations. Dr Ignatova herself disappeared from the public eye at that time, leading to her being dubbed the "Missing Cryptoqueen”. She remains on the run and in 2019 she was charged in absentia by U.S. authorities for wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. Currently one of the FBI’s "Ten Most Wanted”, she is also subject to an international Interpol warrant from the German authorities.
In the podcast series about Dr Ignatova and the OneCoin scam, Jamie Bartlett presents a story of greed, deceit and herd madness that is fascinating funny and frightening. I cannot recommend the podcast and hiscompanion book highly enough.
Brand Association
Jamie has written about how Dr Ruja was a genius at brand association. Knowing credibility was critical to her scam, she made sure to place herself next to trusted brands. She famously gave a speech hosted by The Economist in 2015, for example, where she gave a platitude filled “keynote” that you can watch online here. Well, as it transpires, there was another trusted brand that OneCoin was, as Jamie puts it, “looking to snag”: Consult Hyperion! Jamie writes that
In early 2017 OneCoin appointed someone to figure out what OneCoin needed to do to fix its growing technology mess. He asked Ruja’s London office, RavenR Capital, to come up with names. And the name suggested? ‘I would go for Consult Hyperion’ emailed one staffer, attaching a summary of the company.
When Jamie, an old friend, told me this, I was very pleased to hear of the endorsement. As one of the founders of Consult Hyperion, I have always been very proud of the culture that we built around our core deep subject matter expertise. We have such great people and they helped us to build a global reputation for being the best when it comes to helping scale players to exploit new technology around secure electronic transactions.
(To be honest, even after all these years it still feels pretty good every time I see it confirmed and when I get a message on LinkedIn saying “hey, your team did a great job”, or someone says at a conference “those guys got us out of hole” or a stranger in an airport lounge tells me what a superb analysis one of the team delivered for them.)
The Mayor of Guildford welcomes Consult Hyperion to our new office back in 2011.
Well, I’m especially proud today because Consult Hyperion has just been acquired by FIME, based in Paris, with the intention of scaling up an international presence in the electronic transactions world. The acquisition is clear win-win, bringing world-beating consultancy resources to support FIME's growth ambitions and new global opportunities for the incredible team at Consult Hyperion. I am looking forward to supporting the new integrated consulting organization and promoting our mix of skills, expertise and integrity worldwide.
She Never Writes, Never Calls
But back to the Cryptoqueen. Jamie asked me what Consult Hyperion could have done for OneCoin if they had called, and I told him.
Here I am with Jamie and Erica Stanford (author of “Crypto Wars”, another great book!)
We do due diligence on behalf of investors, we provide expert witnesses in lawsuits, we do risk analysis and penetration testing for some of the biggest names in financial services around the world. There are all sorts of ways that we could have helped them prove that their scheme was awesome, their team was great and they would storm the market.
But Dr. Ruja never called.
She never called for the obvious reason that we have some of the best electronic transactions consultants on the planet. It would have taken them at most around five minutes to discover that the supposed claimant to Bitcoin’s crown was nothing of the sort. As Global Ambassador for Consult Hyperion, it is henceforth my proudest claim that the cryptoqueen never called and if I ever get a coat of arms or a tattoo, I can assure you that it will say “regina non vocavit” as my motto!
So sincere thanks to everyone who helped to make Consult Hyperion what it is today and here’s wishing them and FIME all the best for the future.
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