OneCoin victims get permission for alternative service on “crypto queen” Ruja Ignatova

Less than a month after a group of victims of fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin informed the New York Southern District Court that a number of the defendants in the lawsuit remain unserved, the Court has granted in part their motion for alternative service on some of the defendants.

On January 24, 2020, Judge Valerie E. Caproni signed an order authorizing service by alternative means on OneCoin and Ruja Ignatova (also known as the “crypto queen”).

The document, issued by the Court on Friday and seen by FinanceFeeds, authorizes service of OneCoin by (a) United States International Registered First Class Mail to its Dubai office, (b) email to its onecoin.eu addresses and the addresses of the three related entities, and (c) message to its and related entities’ social media accounts.

Regarding Ruja Ignatova, the most recent evidence the plaintiffs have submitted shows that she used a onecoin.eu email account in October 2016. In addition to the fact that was over three years ago, because the onecoin.eu website is no longer operational, the Court is skeptical that the associated email address continues to be operational. The fact that OneCoin still owns the domain name, as the plaintiffs point out, does not persuade the Court otherwise. The plaintiffs also propose messaging Ignatova’s social media accounts, but they offer no proof that those accounts are real. The link Plaintiffs provide to Ignatova’s LinkedIn profile yields a page that is “not available.” The plaintiffs also represent that Ignatova is a fugitive from justice. If true, that would suggest Ignatova is not active on social media; indeed, the public posts on her Facebook page appear to have been posted by the OneCoin marketing team.

Nonetheless, the Court authorizes service of Ignatova by (a) United States International Registered First Class Mail to the Dubai headquarters with directions that the materials be forwarded to her, (b) message to her social media accounts, and (c) email to her onecoin.eu address, with the added requirement that the plaintiffs must notify the Court, in writing, whether the email bounced, i.e., whether the plaintiffs received an automated return message that the email could not be delivered.

The plaintiffs must notify the Court in writing whether they received a sender-return error for Ignatova. Service of Ignatova will not be considered proper unless no such error is received.

Let’s recall that the plaintiffs in this case represent all individuals and entities who transferred to the OneCoin defendants, directly or indirectly, any fiat currency or cryptocurrency to invest in OneCoin Trader Packages or OneCoins from April 2014 through to and including March 2018 and who suffered financial injury as a result thereof.