The duo had been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit cash laundering for allegedly promoting bogus NFTs to traders earlier than abandoning the undertaking, shutting down their web site, and absconding with $1.1 million in digital funds.
They took the digital cash and ran.
Prosecutors in New York’s Southern District Thursday charged two 20-year-olds in reference to an alleged NFT rip-off.
Ethan Vinh Nguyen and Andre Marcus Quiddaoen Llacuna had been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit cash laundering for allegedly promoting bogus NFTs to traders earlier than abandoning the undertaking, shutting down their web site, and absconding with $1.1 million in digital funds.
NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital belongings supposedly made distinctive and subsequently scarce by way of block-chain know-how. Lately NFTs have fueled a boom in sales of digital art.
“The trending market and demand for NFT investments has not solely drawn the eye of actual artists, however rip-off artists as nicely,” Homeland Safety Investigations Particular Agent In Cost Ricky Patel mentioned in a press release. “The arrested thieves allegedly hid behind on-line identities the place they promised traders rewards, giveaways, and unique alternatives earlier than implementing their ‘rug pull’ scheme – leaving traders with empty pockets and no respectable funding.”
Prosecutors say the pair had pulled up stakes on their so-called “Frosties” sequence of NFTs — deleting the web site and transferring the $1.1 million throughout a number of digital wallets — inside hours of promoting out the digital tokens.
Nguyen and Llacuna had been planning to repeat the digital fly-by-night act with a March 26 NFT drop referred to as “Embers”, prosecutors mentioned.
The pair withstand 20 years in jail in convicted.
