PANews reported on February 21 that according to Bulgarian media BIRD, citing internal investigation documents of the local police, the missing OneCoin co-founder Ruja Ignatova was shot dead on a yacht in Greece in November 2018. The media reported: "At the time, a witness said that he saw the notorious drug lord Hristoforos Amanatidis kill her on the yacht and abandon her body in the nearby sea." The Bulgarian prosecutors and police secured relevant documents and statements in the process of investigating the local police shooting, but the prosecutors did not think it was appropriate to start investigating the case. The prosecutors may have considered that the witness was drunk at the time and there was no other evidence besides the statement. "The Bulgarian media further claimed that her body was dismembered and thrown into the Ionian Sea.

OneCoin was founded by Ruja Ignatova in 2014. She was the top leader of OneCoin until her disappearance. The project has been the subject of investigations in the United States and the United Kingdom since 2016, and several countries have been trying to catch the scammers since then. Last June, OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova was included in the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. At the end of January, Ruja Ignatova was listed as the beneficiary of a London penthouse.