Three UK individuals have been charged by the FBI for their ‘Evolved Apes’ NFT scam, which left investors hanging under false pretences.
Three individuals from the UK have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering via a non-fungible token (NFT) scam. United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams and assistant director in charge of the FBI New York field office James Smith announced on Thursday (6 June) that Mohamed-Amin Atcha, Mohamed Rilaz Waleedh and Daood Hassan had been charged with the offences for their ‘Evolved Apes’ scheme.
The NFT scam involved selling customers ‘Evolved Apes’ digital artwork, with the promise to develop a video game based on the NFTs, therefore raising their value. However, the trio raised a significant sum of money and abandoned the project, shutting down the NFT website and laundering the profits through cryptocurrency transactions into their own bank accounts. The bait-and-switch scheme is known as a ‘rug pull’.
Williams said in a statement: “As alleged, the defendants ran a scam to drive up the price of digital artwork through false promises about developing a videogame. They allegedly took investor funds, never developed the game, and pocketed the proceedings.”
He added: “Digital art may be new, but old rules still apply: making false promises for money is illegal. As we allege, thousands of people believed these false promises and were tricked into buying these NFTs, including here in the Southern District of New York. NFT fraud is no game, and those responsible will be held accountable.”
The case will be ruled on by US District Judge Paul Oetken. Each of the three UK citizens have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and potentially face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison per charge if proven guilty. The Southern District of New York illicit finance and money laundering unit is handling the case, with assistant US attorneys Samuel Raymond and Josiah Pertz in charge of the prosecution.
Smith said: “Ghosting customers without fulfilling a promise not only reflects poor business integrity, it also violated the implicit trust buyers place in sellers when purchasing a product, no matter if that product is in a store or stored on a blockchain.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission announcing a 10-year high of enforcement actions against crypto firms in 2023 under the leadership of Gary Gensler.
This news is republished from another source.
