How French Police Caught NFT Scammers with the Help of Crypto Scientist – Ethereum (ETH/USD)
At least five people were arrested in France on Wednesday for allegedly stealing $2.5 million in valuables. Bored Ape Yacht Collection non-fungible tokens.
BAYC NFTs are a collection of 10,000 unique monkeys living on Ethereum ETH/USD blockchain.
See also: How to buy Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs
What happened: According to Agence France Presse, France’s OCLTIC the cyber crime agency received the tip from a Twitter user “ZachXBT”, who posted his own investigation online.
ZachXBT is an independent crypto, which followed up on complaints from “the community of owners of the Bored Ape Yacht Club series of limited edition monkeys”, a French cybercrime official was quoted as saying.
Update: I am very happy to share that both Mathys and Camille were charged in France as of today.
I am attaching the press release and my article below. pic.twitter.com/BNRAaKiJ3i
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) 12 October 2022
The five accused have been charged with fraud and criminal association, and prosecutors said they were part of a criminal gang that stole BAYC NFTs between late 2021 and early 2022.
See more: How to buy non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
How they did it: The alleged fraudsters created a fake website that offered to animate static NFTs and phished credentials for crypto wallets to the unwanted individuals, which then gave the criminal gang access to all digital assets owned by individuals, AFP reported.
What’s the catch: ZachXBT said on Twitter that an important part of the research includes the use of Tornado Cash REVET/USD by fraudsters to mix and withdraw the funds.
“The [scammers] were not careful to cover their tracks when it came to withdrawing the funds from Tornado, the researcher said.
It should be noted that the US made the use of the Tornado money mixer illegal, citing criminal activity and crypto-laundering activities.
The NFT sphere has been on a rollercoaster ride since 2021, when it witnessed a massive price increase, accounting for around $2.8 billion in sales last year. It has decreased slightly in the first half of this year, according to the analyst firm NonFungible. ‘Bored Apes’ are among the most expensive and well-known NFTs.
Price action: The floor of BAYC has risen 7.86% in the last 24 hours. The seven-day average selling price is 85,726 ETH ETH/USDaccording to data received from NFT’s price floor.
