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  • what are we all here for today?

  • Show me the money people In 2018 the click team went undercover to investigate a scam.

  • People were being promised huge profits if they invested in an apparently new Cryptocurrency called one coin and then talked their friends and family into doing the same.

  • The problem was one coin didn't exist.

  • A few months later journalist Jamie Bartlett started investigating a mysterious twist in this tale.

  • One coins wealthy and charismatic co founder and figurehead.

  • Doctor Rusia Ignatiev regularly seen on stage and at lavish events promoting one coins, supposed promise had vanished and Jamie wanted to track her down for eight weeks.

  • Jamie fronted one of the BBC's most successful podcasts as he reported on his hunt for the missing crypto queen in almost real time.

  • God what a house was security got there, We're looking for the house of Dr Rusia Ignat Ova Okay, do you know where she is?

  • Doesn't know where she is.

  • He spoke to people who had known saw the spoils of her wealth and followed leads from listeners around the world to try and find someone who had persuaded so many people to invest in a get rich quick scheme of astronomical proportions.

  • It was the perfect scam at the perfect time.

  • The hype of Bitcoin.

  • The lack of regulation, the price of Bitcoin going through the roof.

  • The pitch was one coin is Bitcoin but better one coin is Bitcoin but cheaper and if you want to make, Not 5% a year, not 10% 1,000% a year.

  • You've probably missed that with Bitcoin.

  • Jamie's been able to piece together most of the one coin story which he's turned into a book.

  • But even now there are new developments which means more episodes of the podcast too.

  • Dr roozrokh Natasha has just been added to the FBI's top 10 most wanted fugitives list, making her now one of the most wanted women in the world.

  • That thanks to you.

  • Be careful how you answer.

  • I'm not sure.

  • But the way I see that media works sometimes is that if you can create a lot of excitement and interest in a story, then suddenly the authorities decide they're going to act.

  • I think what's interesting about her appearing on that list is she's the first ever crypto scammer.

  • So alongside cartel bosses, alleged murderers.

  • Now we have a crypto scammer.

  • How difficult do you think it is to disappear completely these days?

  • I'd always assumed almost impossible except that if you've got enough money and you can change your appearance somewhat, you can fairly easily obtain fake identity documents.

  • And as long as you have iron discipline, you don't make a mistake, you stay undercover or you're very well protected by governments that are happy to keep you there.

  • I think you can disappear.

  • But not only do you need discipline your close friends and family need to watch their digital footprints too.

  • We were trying to find this hidden mansion that we'd heard rumors about in Dubai that we believed Rusia had purchased.

  • No one knew where it was.

  • We scoured through her brother's instagram and found he'd taken a selfie six months after Rusia had disappeared, which he'd tagged as being in Sofia Bulgaria but the background looked like it was somewhere in the Middle East and there were a few buildings in the background.

  • So there was a few little clues that we brought in.

  • A couple of open source intelligence specialists who are experts in being able to take a photograph and track down the precise location it was taken.

  • So this one guy does a lot of reverse image searches for all the buildings in the background and he's found a video of the exact buildings in the same order as in the selfie.

  • So he thinks great, I can now tell you that it is in Dubai where in Dubai well I'll use now I'll use google satellite to start trying to look down at where those buildings are and try and work out a line of sight using sort of basic geometry really to try to pinpoint down to the exact location.

  • And he starts matching up like trees, pylons, small buildings, walls that he can see on google satellite that match the background of the instagram selfie all the way until he's able to identify little patches of stains on walls and then finds the house using google satellite that matches the picture and basically sends us an address and says this is where the photo was taken in the back garden of that property on that street.

  • And I just couldn't believe it from one instagram picture, that is how much a specialist can find in the book.

  • You say you haven't posted much online yourself since there's a reason for that because I know that the people that are involved in one coin probably don't like me very much.

  • And I realize even if I posted a picture of me in my back garden, there's a possibility someone could work out my home address because I've done it to them.

what are we all here for today?

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