Dubai Investor Mints $30 Million in Crypto Celebrity Pump and Dump

Dubai-based investor Sahil Arora has been reportedly using Solana-based platform Pump Fun for launching celebrity tokens and has reportedly duped investors of a staggering $30 million. Reportedly, Arora pulled off a classic pump-and-dump scam by issuing celebrity tokens on the Solana memecoin platform.

Crypto Pump and Dump Scam on Pump Fun

As per the reports from Bubblemaps, Sahil made a staggering $30 million so far in 2024 by launching celebrity tokens, most of which many dumped to zero after the launch. Reportedly, the Dubai-based investor issued tokens on Pump Fun for celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner, Mayweather, Amber Rose, Suny Leone, Iggy Azalea, and others.

As per data from Bubblemaps, Sahil used Pump Fun as a launchpad as well as his 1.5 million massive audience on Instagram Sahil reached out to celebrities for a deal offering them a large payment against tweeting the contract address of a token.

Check out what it took for Sahil to convince Jason Derulo:

“would u do a tweet for $200k, my g?” pic.twitter.com/TBlmK76oO6

— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) August 14, 2024

Bubblemaps said that Sahil would control a large portion of the token supply while offloading his holdings immediately after the promotional tweets from celebrities, and using their audience as liquidity exit. Interestingly, Sahil was also openly sharing his profits minted using these tactics.

Bubblemaps has identified over 40 crypto wallet addresses associated with Sahil. For each token, Sahil reportedly held between 25-40% of the supply across multiple addresses before consolidating and selling the tokens. Later, he funneled the proceeds to a main wallet, identified as 7Ci23i82. From this main wallet, Sahil used to regularly send the funds to centralized exchanges (CEX). Bubblemaps has shared data on how Sahil managed to scoop investors’ money throughout 2024.

He would then send funds to multiple CEX deposit

Since the beginning of the year, Sahil off ramped $26.4 million

• Jan: $3M
• Feb: $1.8M
• Mar: $3.2M
• Apr: $2.5M
• May: $4.8M
• Jun: $2.5M
• Jul: $2M
• Aug: $6.6M

Not including funds left in other addresses

— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) August 14, 2024

Interestingly, Bubblemaps further added: “Despite thousands of fans losing money, Sahil’s actions fall into a legal gray area, making them difficult to pursue Even the celebrities aren’t going after him because they are partly responsible”.

Solana-based Memecoin Platform Sees Record Growth

Solana-based memecoin creation platform Pump Fun has hit a new milestone with monthly agreement income. During the month of July, the platform minted a record-breaking $28.73 million worth of agreement income.

Besides, last month, it also surpassed the Ethereum blockchain in terms of daily revenue amid the high memecoin activity. It also generated a record $5.3 million in daily fees earlier this week.

In the latest development, the Solana memecoin platform removed the $2 fee for token creation while shifting this cost to the first buyer. Well, this has led to an explosion in token creation and complaints from users. Besides, it can give wrong encouragement to other people like Sahil Arora in creating their tokens and duping legit investors.

The platform has been vulnerable to crypto hacking with a hacker draining $2 million from the Solana memecoin platform back in May.

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Bhushan Akolkar

Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.

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