A Vietnamese-origin NFT issuer has just been arrested for defrauding $1.1 million
Specifically, Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna are the people behind the NFT project called Frosties. This NFT collection was created with a total of 8,888 units then sold to collectors for 130 USD/NFT. All of the above NFTs were completely dispersed after only 1 hour.
The NFTs of the Frosties collection
Ethan Nguyen’s letter to the project’s Discord administrator
However, as soon as NFT was finally “closed”, both developers, Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna, “died without bubbling”. In a “heart letter” to the project’s Discord channel administrator, Ethan Nguyen wrote: “I know it’s shocking, but this project has ended. We had no intention of continuing to develop Frosties and also has no plans for the future,” the letter wrote. In addition, Ethan also sent the above administrator a small amount of ETH for the trouble caused and advised him to delete his Discord account to avoid trouble later.
Thus, after a series of promises of 3D avatars or a blockchain game related to the character Frosties, both main characters in the drama disappear, leaving NFTs that slip without brakes and become almost priceless. market value not long after. Some collectors even tried to resell these NFTs for just a few dollars but were “helpless”.
Unfortunate collectors who purchased NFT Frosties simultaneously submitted complaints to the authorities and were quickly handled. Since the end of January 2022, the Criminal Investigation Department of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS-CI) and the US Department of Homeland Security (HSI) have stepped in and investigated the unknowns behind the Frosties project.
Joshua Christian here spent more than 1,000 USD to buy up to 3 NFT Frosties and received a “bitter” ending
After investigating the ministry, the authorities found an account on the Coinbase exchange that corresponds to the IP address of Ethan Nguyen, as well as the email and phone number of Andre Llacuna. Both accounts lead to Citibank credit cards and identification. These clues have helped the investigating agency find out the real identity of the two scammers.
As a result, both were arrested in Los Angeles, California.
More daringly, the two have plans to start another project called Embers, which is due to be announced at the end of March. This project has even raised an investment of $500,000.
Website of the Embers . project
Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna are currently being charged with two counts of fraud and money laundering and prosecutors said on March 24, the records are being finalized for a public trial. next time. Although the form of fraud used in the Frosties case is not new, it has always been the most common form used by scammers, especially in cryptocurrency projects or projects. NFT and is often remembered with the term “rug pull” or “rug pull” or more casually “over the drawbridge”.
According to data from Chainalysis, in 2021 alone, crypto investors and NFTs have suffered losses of more than 3 billion USD due to scams of this form, but it is very rare for those behind to be brought out. light like the Frosties case due to the anonymity of blockchain technology and the legal framework in most countries around the world still do not have suitable sanctions to handle situations involving extremely new types of assets. this batch.
Cryptocurrency, commonly known as “virtual money”, has not been recognized by law in Vietnam.
GameFi (short for Game + Finance) is a term that refers to games built on blockchain that incorporate financial elements. The information in the article is for reference only and has no investment recommendation value.
at Blogtuan.info – Source: genk.vn – Read the original article here
