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The nearly 10,000-strong NFT collection is still listed on OpenSea, but its floor price is a measly $7.60.
Three British nationals tied to the “Evolved Apes” nonfungible token “rug pull” scam have been charged in the United States for conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
The defendants, Mohamed-Amin Atcha, Mohamed Rilaz Waleedh and Daood Hassan, allegedly drove up the prices of 10,000 NFTs on false promises that they would develop a video game before transferring the funds out and abandoning the project, the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York said in a June 6 statement.
“Digital art may be new, but old rules still apply: making false promises for money is illegal [...] NFT fraud is no game, and those responsible will be held accountable,” iterated U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
Rashawn Russell, a former Deutsche Bank executive, also intended to commit fraud with stolen bank cards.
On May 31, former investment banker Rashawn Russell was sentenced in Eastern New York District Court in Brooklyn to 41 months in prison for wire fraud in a cryptocurrency scheme and an unrelated access device fraud scheme. The former Deutsche Bank executive pleaded guilty to the charges in September.
According to the Justice Department (DOJ), Russell ran the fraudulent R3 Crypto Fund between November 2020 and August 2022. The fund promised to make cryptocurrency investments and pay large, sometimes guaranteed, returns. In reality, Russell used investors’ money for his personal benefit or to repay other investors. He also falsely claimed to have wired money to investors asking to be repaid.
Russell was also a registered broker with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. He could have been sentenced to 30 years in prison on the charges. He was also ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution to the victims of the crypto scheme.