They only make up 5% of Europe’s most wanted fugitives, yet they are hiding from a wide range of accusations, including employing killers and running organized criminal organizations.
A large reward is even placed on the head of one fugitive who is suspected of scamming investors with a $4 billion bitcoin pyramid scheme.
According to a list from Europol, which publishes hundreds of profiles of missing offenders around the EU each September, these are the continent’s most sought female fugitives.
Five sought women are still at large, with just one having been located thus far—suspected sex trafficker Viviana Andrea Vallejo Gutiérrez, who was discovered in an isolated South American village in the forest in October.
Tania Gomez is well-known online as the glossy owner of the dog rescue organization HundGärin, but Europol claims that she also took part in a number of more sinister operations.
Since March 2021, the Swedish government has been looking for the 30-year-old in connection with a probe into major drug trafficking and money laundering offenses.
She is also suspected of having links to a Stockholm-based organized criminal organization, for which she supplied and transported substantial amounts of cash and drugs.
She is also charged with participating in a network of “irregular animal ownership and their transit overseas,” according to Europol, despite portraying herself on social media as a kind dog lover who saves stray animals and treats them until they are healthy.
Ruja Ignatova, the following Bulgarian “Cryptoqueen,” is not only on Europol’s most-wanted list but also one of the top ten, with the FBI offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to her capture.
Dr. Ignatova, 42, is charged with utilizing her cryptocurrency OneCoin to defraud investors worldwide between 2014 and 2018 through a multi-level marketing scheme.
Investigators think Ignatova was made aware of the suspected con artist’s plans to fly to Greece and vanish in 2017 after a U.S. District Court in New York issued a warrant for her arrest.
Ignatova, a lawyer known as the “Cryptoqueen,” co-founded OneCoin in 2014 as the “Bitcoin killer,” persuading investors to buy units of her cryptocurrency.
According to investigators, a crucial aspect of her business strategy was to encourage investors to sell more OneCoin packages to friends and relatives, thereby creating a pyramid scheme to reward the top earners.
The FBI said in their statement that Ignatova “targeted those who may not have fully grasped the ins and outs of cryptocurrencies but were attracted by Ignatova’s excellent background and the marketing methods utilized by OneCoin.”
Ignatova, who was born in Bulgaria, is only the 11th woman to be on the FBI’s most wanted list in the agency’s 72-year history.
Additionally, she is sought in Germany as a result of an Interpol Red Notice, which cautions that she could have had cosmetic surgery to alter her appearance and evade detection.
She was living in luxury, according to investigators, before traveling to Sofia, Bulgaria, after an arrest order was issued for her on October 12, 2017.
Then, on October 25, it was said that she was traveling from Sofia to Athens, Greece, and she hasn’t been seen since.
Authorities suspect she may be traveling to the United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, Russia, Germany, Greece, or Eastern Europe with a fictitious German passport.
Ignatova ascended the stage in the UK’s Wembley Arena at the height of OneCoin’s fame to celebrate her accomplishments and proclaim that her cryptocurrency will surpass Bitcoin.
Eva Zámenková, a 41-year-old Czech citizen sought in Slovakia after being given an eight-year jail term in absentia for hiring an assassin to murder her ex-husband, is the third female fugitive still at large.
The florist had plans in January 2014 to give her buddy Martin Adamkovi €50,000 so he could murder the soldier she had just been married to for two months and declare missing after two years in order to claim his property.
When her plot to kill her husband with a rifle failed, she reportedly informed Mr. Adamkovi that he would instead have to strangle her husband with a rope.
Instead, he handed her over to the police and assisted them in staging the murder to gather sufficient proof.
Mr. Adamkovi subsequently testified as the prosecution’s witness in her murder case and indicated that Zámenková’s desire to no longer “feed her spouse” was one of her driving forces.
Zámenková denied wrongdoing and said that Adamkovi was seeking retribution since she had refused to give him money. She argued that there was no proof to support the claims made concerning the intended murder and the alleged prize.
The entrepreneur spent many months in pre-trial jail before being freed in August 2014 to give birth to her kid.
Although the Specialized Criminal Court declared her guilty in January 2020, she has since fled and is now one of the EU’s most sought offenders.
Anamaria Radu-Stoica, a Hungarian who was given a ten-year jail term, is now sought in her own nation.
The 34-year-old and two others established an organized criminal gang with the goal of enabling prostitution, sometimes including young girls, and sexually exploiting women.
Since August 2012, she has been evading capture.
Last but not least, the Hungarian Andrea Dudla, also known as Eszter Kathona, has been on the lam since 2012 after receiving a more than 15-year prison term for her role in a number of financial crimes.
In order to get bank loans totaling hundreds of millions of Forints in the 2000s, Dudla and two accomplices created false invoices and balance sheets that seemed to be those of legitimate firms.
A total of 4,400 tons of grain were sold for 250 million forints (£610,000), however no corn was ever given over.
At one point, it was thought that the 43-year-old woman may be hiding in Thailand, the country where one of her criminal associates was apprehended.
Viviana Andrea Vallejo Gutiérrez, who was detained in Malchala, Ecuador on suspicion of human trafficking, drug dealing, and money laundering, is the only female fugitive on Europol’s 2022 Most Wanted List to have been apprehended so far.
Police were looking for the Colombian national, also known as “Vivi,” who had left Spain after being charged with operating brothels where forced prostitutes and trafficking women were compelled to work.
She is said to have been a member of a group that paid women €1,500 to enter Spain and required them to make up the difference through prostitution once they arrived.
According to the police, the 36-year-old was in charge of supervising the ladies, who had to be accessible around the clock, as well as providing cocaine to customers.
She was discovered hiding in Ecuador on October 28 and now faces a 32-year jail sentence.
»Crypto Queen to Romanian gang leader: Europe’s most sought women«