With the increasing number of fraudulent acts in the NFT market, no one can vouch for the entire market to be an authentic place to make investment. The United States Department of Justice recently charged an NFT developer in an alleged $2.9 Million rug pull scheme involving Mutant Ape Planet collection. They say that the defendant, Aurelian Michel, was taken over from the John F Kennedy International Airport.
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The individual falsely lured the investors into the alleged malicious scheme by promising the perks they would extract out of the project, an attempt to elevate the demand. According to Breon Peace, US Attorney who announced the charges, “ protection from such fraudulent schemes extends to everyone, including the ones making investments into the NFT market.”
Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New York, Ivan J. Arvelo, explained the event by saying that “The individual allegedly perpetrated the rug pull to steal around $3 Million only to be directed for personal use.” The agency will look closely to the matter using their state of the art capabilities, he added.
Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation’s Acting Special Agent-in-Charge, Thomas Fattorusso, stated that “Aurelian allegedly made false representations of staking features associated with the collection, NFT giveaway and more.” Moreover, he purportedly cut off the comms and withdrew the assets from the organization’s crypto wallets.
The accused has admitted to have pulled off the alleged act in a social media chat according to the DOJ document. He said that “They never intended to do something like that but the community went too toxic”.
This is not it, ZachXBT, an NFT investigator, took the matter to Twitter, saying that the accused happened to be a founder of another $1.6 million rug pull scheme dubbed Crazy Camel Club. Moreover, he attached screenshots of Michel’s Instagram account and pointed out where Aurelian might have spent the money.
Fraudulent NFT projects are swarming the market trying to snatch investor funds. Recently, Coffeezilla, a crypto journalist and investigator, posted a three part video series regarding CryptoZoo, a play-to-earn game once promoted by a YouTube personality Logan Paul, claiming the project to be a fraudulent act.
The NFT sector has lost a significant value since their rise in 2021. Several investors has showed a lot of interest since then, meanwhile the malicious actors saw the boom as an opportunity to exploit the communities.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/01/10/doj-arrests-24-year-old-in-an-alleged-nft-fraud/