Jonathan Ames, Legal Editor | Mark Bridge | Mark Hollingsworth

Ruja Ignatova wore couture gowns to promote OneCoin

A City law firm advised a glamorous businesswoman known as the Cryptoqueen months before she disappeared and her OneCoin scheme was exposed as a £4 billion pyramid fraud.

Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian-German who went to Oxford, set up RavenR Capital, a “family office” in Knightsbridge that allegedly employed up to 12 people to invest her wealth.

Ms Ignatova, 39, the face of OneCoin, was fêted at an event hosted by The Economist and promoted the scheme to crowds at Wembley Arena. It was pitched as an alternative to Bitcoin that would make investors rich while benefiting poor people in Africa and Asia.

Tens of thousands of Britons invested about £100 million in OneCoin and were among victims from 175 countries when the scheme began to…