Nfts
US charges three British nationals for “Evolved Apes” NFT rug pull – DL News
- The United States alleges that the defendants drove up NFT prices with the promise of developing a video game.
- The video game “Evolved Apes” never saw the light of day.
- Instead, funds from NFT sales disappeared.
United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a statement he charged three British nationals in connection with a 2021 rug pulling scam involving a collection of 10,000 NFTs called “”Evolved Apes.’
Mohamed-Amin Atcha, Mohamed Rilaz Waleedh and Daood Hassan, all 23, were charged with wire fraud and money laundering, according to the statement. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
According to the indictment, the three men ran a type of scam commonly known as a “rug pull,” in which developers advertise a digital project, collect money from buyers, and then abandon the project and retain the funds. in this case798 Ethereum worth around $2.7 million at the time.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said that “the defendants conducted a scam to drive up the price of digital artwork through false promises about the development of a video game. They allegedly took investors’ funds, never developed the game, and pocketed the profits. »
Williams added: “Digital art may be new, but the old rules still apply: making false promises of money is illegal. As we allege, thousands of people believed these false promises and were lured into purchasing these NFTs, including here in the Southern District of New York.
The statement alleged that the three men laundered the misappropriated funds through several cryptocurrency transactions into their own personal accounts.
DL News reported earlier than last year, rug pulling and related scams totaled approximately $760 millionaccording to data from blockchain security company Quantstamp