Three of America’s Most Wanted
Are These Rewards Worth The Risk?
When you’re sitting at home daydreaming of quick ways to amass funds, winning the lottery probably comes to mind first. Unfortunately, most of us won’t be lucky enough to land a payday in this manner and will have to seek more practical ways to earn our fortune. Of course, even more of us will likely never earn a fortune at all. But for three of The FBI’s most wanted fugitives, nearly anything is on the table when it comes to making money. These hardened criminals have painted the road to riches with their enemies’ blood and have destroyed thousands of lives. In hopes that someone will assist in stopping their exploits, The Federal Buerue of Investigation has placed a bounty on information leading to their arrests. Although the sum of the prize is quite alluring, once you’ve read who these high-priced outlaws are, you will probably think twice before getting involved.
Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez
Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez, or simply “El Gato,” entered The FBI’s top ten in 2020. El Gato is wanted for conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and interstate stalking and is considered one of the leaders of the Beltran-Levya Cartel. Sometime before 2013, Villarreal-Hernandez’s father was killed by rival gang members from the Gulf Cartel. Villarreal-Hernandez believed the man directly responsible for his father’s death was an attorney named Juan Jesús Guerro Chapa. Guerro Chapa served as the top attorney for the Gulf Cartel’s leader, Osiel Cárdens Guillén, but was living in Southlake, Texas as a government informant. He helped transfer roughly 50 million in assets to the U.S Government that belonged to the Gulf Cartel’s paramilitary ground force, The Zetas. Villarreal-Hernandez paid men to track Guerro Chapa down and execute him as revenge for his father’s death.
A man named Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Campano was later arrested in connection to the murder and has testified that they used GPS to track Guerro Chapa. Ledezma-Campano claimed that the two assassins, known only as Clorox and Captain, were actually El Gato’s two bodyguards. He even said that at one point, Villarreal-Hernandez served as a federal officer in Mexico and had him tail a police chief who later turned up dead. In May of 2013, Clorox and Captain pulled up to Guerro Chapa and his wife in the parking lot at The Southlake Town Center. One exited the vehicle and shot Guerro Chapa with a 9mm pistol. Guerro Chapa was rushed to the hospital, where he was declared dead. Thankfully his wife wasn’t harmed too, but I can’t imagine how hard an experience like that must be on her. According to Ledezma-Campano, El Gato and Guerro-Chapa have a long history of family feuds. Ledezma-Campano even stated that after they performed the hit, Guerro-Chapa’s sister sent a video to Villarreal-Hernandez of her beheading one of his relatives.
Villarreal-Hernandez and the two assassins are still at large. Today it is expected that El Gato serves as a plaza boss of the Beltran-Levya Cartel, primarily in the cities of San Pedro Garza Garcia and Monterrey. The FBI is offering a whopping 1,000,000$ for information leading to the arrest of Villarreal-Hernandez. Still, unless you have elite military training and a small army, I would strongly recommend not crossing this guy. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose your father the way Villarreal-Hernandez did. That said, nothing can justify the heinous acts he has committed in retaliation or simply for his own personal gain.
Ruja Ignatova
Infamously known as “The CryptoQueen,” this entry into The FBI’s top ten is possibly the biggest fraudster of our time. After receiving a Ph.D. in Private International Law, Ruja Ignatova and her father committed fraud in 2012. They acquired a company in Germany that went bankrupt under dubious conditions shortly after, and she was given a suspended sentence of 14 months in prison. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning, and a year later, she founded a multi-level marketing scheme called Big Coin while on probation for fraud. It turned out this was small potatoes compared to the international heist she pulled off next.
In 2014, Ruja, her brother Konstantine and a marketing guru Karl Sebastian Greenwood founded a cryptocurrency blockchain called ONECOIN. Sebastian Greenwood became the face of the company that promised investors to beat out BitCoin as the most prominent cryptocurrency on the market. ONECOIN ran like a multi-level marketing scheme where investors were supposed to be rewarded tokens for purchasing ONECOIN’S product and recruiting other investors. The product consisted of educational courses intended to inform investors how to use cryptocurrency and the ONECOIN exchange. ONECOIN also featured its own exchange and wallet, which was the only place you could trade the coin. Ruja boasted the gigantic earnings of the company, which amounted to nearly 4 billion dollars starting in Q1 of 2015. In 2016 the company was so massive it even sold out Wembley Stadium for a promotional event where Ruja spoke to the crowd.
In 2017 authorities got a warrant to arrest Ruja and her brother Konstantin Ignatov took over ONECOIN. It was found that ONECOIN didn’t actually exist, and they had no blockchain technology to back it up. Investors were denied sales of their holdings that soon after became worthless. Ruja was scheduled to do an event in Lisbon but boarded a plane to Athens and disappeared from the public eye.
This year, two ONECOIN promoters named Oscar and Ignacio Ibarra were found dead in Mazatlan, Mexico. Even though ONECOIN had already been internationally exposed as a farce, these two men continued to push the product across Central America. They told people if they used ONECOIN to purchase cars from them, the prices would be lower, and they ultimately never delivered any of the vehicles. After accumulating 400k, it is speculated that they were kidnapped and murdered by a local cartel.
Both Karl Sebastian Greenwood and Konstantine Ignatova have since been apprehended, but Ruja remains at large. The FBI is offering $100,000 for information leading to her arrest, but the risk of getting involved hardly feels worth it. It is speculated that she is constantly accompanied by armed security and has received plastic surgery to alter her appearance. This woman has violated the trust of the public and of people who believed during this awful tragedy. Hopefully, the thousands of people she defrauded will be given restitution.
Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias
Yulan Carias, more commonly known as “El Porky,” may be one of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Carias is from Honduras, where he became one of the leaders of the infamous violent street gang known as MS-13 or The Mara Salvatrucha.
El Porky is wanted for selling weapons, trafficking cocaine, and using assassins, or “Sicarios,” to murder people across Latin America. For a long time, authorities didn’t believe that MS-13 could be a significant player in the cartel ring due to its lack of hierarchy, but they have since come to feel the gang has evolved into something much larger. One of Yulan Carias’ accomplices, Daniel Campbell, was captured after evading authorities for five years. Part of the reason MS-13 has become more of a focus is that Campbell was arrested in Nicaragua. It suggests the gang is branching out its operations and taking controlling stakes in neighboring countries. The U.S hasn’t come to terms on an extradition treaty with Nicaragua, so they are unable to bring Campbell in for questioning and sentencing.
In 2020, Nicaraguan police arrested Yulan Carias and held him in custody until the day of his sentencing hearing. The Nicaraguan President was scrutinized for the minimal security of Yulan Carias while in a publicly known location. While awaiting his turn at the courthouse, twenty armed men dressed in military and police uniforms stormed the courthouse to spring Yulan Carias free after killing four officers.
Yulan Carias is still at large despite President Trump forming Joint Task Force Vulcan to deconstruct the entire MS-13 syndicate. The FBI is offering $100,000 for information leading to his arrest but beware. The capabilities of a man like this go beyond my understanding. It is clear he has ties with all the local governments where he has set up shop, which makes him extremely dangerous. Risking your well-being for this $100,000 is far and away not worth it.
Certain people are willing to expend whatever or whoever it takes to satisfy their immense greed, and these three are at the top of the list(literally). These criminals should pay for the thousands of lives they’ve affected through fraud and drugs. Imagine how damaged one must be to commit this level of malfeasance and have little to no remorse after. If you’re out there and have information about these criminals, do not make the decision based solely on money. Securing your safety should be your number one priority.
