Crypto entrepreneur accused of leading a million-dollar verification drive on Instagram
Dillon Shamoun, the founder of FanVerse, a company that allows influencers to sell personalized NFTs, has been accused of running a million-dollar ring of illegal Instagram verifications.
According to a ProPublica report published Wednesday, Shamoun likely made millions from clients who paid him to get Instagram endorsements, in violation of Meta’s guidelines. Meta, Instagram’s parent company, prohibits users from selling account verifications or misrepresenting themselves in order to be verified.
Shamoun, who also claims to be a Miami-based DJ, founded FanVerse in July, along with Mike Vazquez, who appeared on the MTV reality show Siesta keyaccording to a July 7 statement announcing the company’s launch.
The company, according to the statement, is endorsed by several celebrities and influencers and was billed as “Web3’s premier destination for all luxury and travel-related NFT drops.” The Twitter account is verified but has fewer than 5,000 followers.
In addition to his NFT business, Shamoun, with the help of business partner and Instagram creator Adam Quinn, allegedly sold verifications to several people, including a jeweler, a surgeon and an OnlyFans creator in exchange for thousands of dollars. Both Quinn and Shamoun are now banned from all Meta platforms.
Meta and Shamoun did not immediately respond to a request for comment Fortune. Quinn could not be reached for comment.
The scheme, according to ProPublica, involved making clients look like musicians, complete with streaming accounts and planted articles. Shamoun and his team would allegedly ask customers to create a fake persona, complete with posts in designer clothes and in recording studios, then upload faint electronic beats or dead noise to Spotify and Apple Music with fake streams to appear legitimate.
Using paid articles, some tweaks emphasizing fake music careers on his clients’ Instagrams, and a boost from Google, Shamoun reportedly helped hundreds of clients get verified on Instagram.
Quinn acknowledged selling account verifications in partnership with Shamoun, but denied submitting fake musician accounts to Instagram, according to ProPublica. Shamoun denied being involved in the scheme to sell account verifications.
“People know who I am and my character and what I do for business, and it has nothing to do with Facebook or Instagram,” he told ProPublica, which also reported that Vazquez was stripped of his blue check badge for being falsely verified as a musician on Instagram.
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