I found this book to be really interesting. I can’t say I knew anything about the story prior to this, but the space is an interesting one and obviously very open to these kinds of scams. It did feel a little drawn out at times with unnecessary detail but all in found it to be very inspiring and enjoyable, and I would definitely recommend it if you enjoy non fiction and true crime.

Devil's Coin is the compelling and intriguing story of how one woman fought against a notorious scammer who stole her money with the aim of getting eventual justice. She was the undisputed Ruja Ignatova, born in Bulgaria and raised in Germany. Elusive before her scheme was carried out and even more so afterwards, and if you can't find the defendant you want to bring court proceedings against due to them purposefully going off grid you either never get justice or wait and bide your time; it appears that for McAdam it was the latter, and she never lost hope. With Ignatova's newly created cryptocurrency OneCoin, it seemed, for all intents and purposes, that it would be competing with Bitcoin itself. It was so convincing that thousands of people around the world, including Jennifer McAdam, daughter of a Scottish miner, invested their money in the project — a total of several billion US dollars. When Ignatova suddenly disappeared in 2017, it became clear that McAdam and thousands with her were the victims of one of the largest crypto scams in history. The crypto queen stole between 4 and 14 billion dollars from people all over the world – an estimated 100 million pounds in Great Britain alone between 2014 and 2017.

McAdam was the only one to fight back, and despite constant harassment and death threats, she continues to fight tirelessly for justice for herself, her family and the thousands around the world who have lost everything, in some cases their lives. Jennifer McAdam is a modern-day Erin Brockovich, and her book is a true David and Goliath story. An interesting, eminently readable cautionary tale filled with detail and the harrowing emotional impact it had on those who lost everything really hit home and made me feel sorry for these victims of financial fraud; as someone fascinated by those who fall for scams, con artists' tricks, multilevel marketing/pyramid schemes, etc, I couldn't resist picking this up as I had never heard of OneCoin or Ignatova previously despite having a big interest in this area. My only minor issue was that sometimes there was quite a lot of autobiographical detail about McAdam's personal life which had little to nothing to do with the story and didn't enrich the narrative at all, but that's likely quite subjective on my part. Overall, a poignant, surprisingly compulsive and inspiring page-turner which serves as a warning to others about blind trust of near-total strangers in any capacity but especially where money is concerned.