March 24 (UPI) — Two male were charged with using a $1 million NFT scam in January, authorities said Wed.

Ethan Nguyen, 20, and Andre Llacuna, 20, were charged while having conspiracy to commit terme conseillé fraud and conspiracy to successfully commit money laundering amongst the “rug pull” scheme rigid they accepted millions of dollars of a payments for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, and did not deliver promised benefits, the very U. S. Attorneys Normal office for the Southern District of recent York said in a statement .

Advertisement

According to the refund claim, Nguyen and Llacuna commercialized a series of NFTs known as “Frosties” and promised that buyers without realizing it would gain access to rewards example giveaways, early access to a fabulous metaverse game and personal access to future Frosties the seasons.

However , on top of Jan. 9, within a lot of of selling the final Frosties NFT, the pair deactivated the Frosties website combined with transferred about $1. the cheaper million in cryptocurrency accumulated from the sales to various cryptocurrency wallets they controlled regarding multiple transactions in an effort to conceal where the funds came from.

“As we give evidence, Mr. Nguyen and Mister. Llacuna promised investors the key benefits of the Frosties NFTs, nevertheless it sold out, they yanked the rug out from the casualty, almost immediately shutting over the website and transferring your money, ” U. S. Lawyer or attorney Damian Williams said. “Our job as prosecutors because law enforcement is to protect everywhere from swindlers looking for a wage advance. ”

Advertisement

Nguyen and Llacuna suffered also been advertising a second NFT project with the name “Embers, ” which authorities ponder was another fraud layout given the similarity in order to Frosties, that was meant to introduction on Saturday.

Each of those charges filed against Nguyen and Llacuna carry the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.



Very few men charged with scams in NFT ‘rug pull’ scheme
Source: Philippines Majesty