Two 20-year-olds charged with alleged $1.1m NFT scam
They took the virtual money and ran away.
Prosecutors for the Southern District of New York on Thursday charged two 20-year-olds in connection with an alleged NFT scam.
Ethan Vinh Nguyen and Andre Marcus Quiddaoen Lacuna have been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money for allegedly selling fake NFTs to investors before abandoning the project, shutting down their website and s run away with $1.
million in digital funds.
I seriously wonder how they will even prosecute these guys as currently I’m not aware there are even guidelines how to treat NFTs. Time will tell!!!
People think they can scam with crypto and get away because “it’s crypto” and anything goes – they don’t realize that blockchain is actually often the opposite of private. All your transactions are public and on etherscan and being analyzed by the feds. Yes theoretically if you do everything right crypto can be private – but all it takes is one slip up.
I am so glad this caught up with them. It really hurts the artists in the long run. People will be very hesitant to purchase NFTs when they have in the back of their minds it could be a rug or scam. I always tell people make sure to do your own research and with regards to opensea only purchase NFTs with a linkable Twitter handle in the collections.