Mutant Ape Planet Copycat Creator Aurelien Michael Arrested for Fraud
The developer of the Mutant Ape Yacht Club knockoff collection pleads guilty to defrauding investors and taking $2.9 million.
The arrest occurred on January 4th at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Homeland Security Agent Ivan J. Arvelo reports that French national Aurelien Michel committed a "rug pull" and stole "nearly $3 million from investors for his personal use." He added that:
"Buyers of NFT Mutant Ape Planet thought they were investing in a new fashion collectible but were deceived and received none of the promised benefits."
The DOJ press release quotes Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent Thomas Fattorusso, a government agency, saying that "Michel deceived investors by making false claims about gifts, stackable tokens, and collectibles, among other things." The press release noted that Michel immediately withdrew the funds after selling all the non-functional NFT tokens.
The statement says Michel admitted to the "rug pull" on social media via chat, writing, "I never intended to do a rug pull, but the community became too toxic."
The collections consisted of 6,797 NFTs stored on the Ethereum network and were replicas of the popular Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection. The collection launched in January 2022 and had a total of 567 Ether in sales. Since its launch, however, there has been a drop in price and overall volume.
Following the arrest, many messages from holders of the collection appeared on Twitter describing their experiences. They said they wanted to blame it on the community for being under-active and skeptical of the entire collection.
Since then, the community has been taking care of the project and trying to keep it alive, led by a user going by the pseudonym HTMadge.
According to a December 21st DappRadar report, rug pulls (an exit scam in which project creators abruptly leave the platform or withdraw liquidity from it) was the most common scam in 2022. $200 million was thought to have been stolen in these scams, and 119 cases were recorded.
Source: cointelegraph.com
analyst opinion
Jakub Odvářka
The arrest occurred on January 4th at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Homeland Security Agent Ivan J. Arvelo reports that French national Aurelien Michel committed a "rug pull" and stole "nearly $3 million from investors for his personal use." He added that:
"Buyers of NFT Mutant Ape Planet thought they were investing in a new fashion collectible but were deceived and received none of the promised benefits."
The DOJ press release quotes Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent Thomas Fattorusso, a government agency, saying that "Michel deceived investors by making false claims about gifts, stackable tokens, and collectibles, among other things." The press release noted that Michel immediately withdrew the funds after selling all the non-functional NFT tokens.
The statement says Michel admitted to the "rug pull" on social media via chat, writing, "I never intended to do a rug pull, but the community became too toxic."
The collections consisted of 6,797 NFTs stored on the Ethereum network and were replicas of the popular Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection. The collection launched in January 2022 and had a total of 567 Ether in sales. Since its launch, however, there has been a drop in price and overall volume.
Following the arrest, many messages from holders of the collection appeared on Twitter describing their experiences. They said they wanted to blame it on the community for being under-active and skeptical of the entire collection.
Since then, the community has been taking care of the project and trying to keep it alive, led by a user going by the pseudonym HTMadge.
According to a December 21st DappRadar report, rug pulls (an exit scam in which project creators abruptly leave the platform or withdraw liquidity from it) was the most common scam in 2022. $200 million was thought to have been stolen in these scams, and 119 cases were recorded.
Source: cointelegraph.com
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