Arrested last January in the United States, the creator of the “Mutant Ape Planet” NFT collection finally admitted his guilt in federal court. He could face 5 years of imprisonment even if he accepted the payment of 1.4 million dollars imposed by American prosecutors. Big plan !
A Frenchman at the origin of an NFT “rug pull”
On January 4, Aurélien Michel was the subject of a arrest at New York JFK airport due to NTF fraud by using its “Mutant Ape Planet” collection. Since then, he has not left American soil while awaiting trial for his fraudulent acts.
And seeing the latest news, the time of the verdict for this French resident in Dubai is approaching.
“ I guess it’s locking up the crooks in Web3 now.
Historic moment for cryptocurrencies! Aurélien Michel, creator of Mutant Ape Planet NFT, pleads guilty to electronic fraud, concealing the very first conviction for an NFT ‘rug pull’ system. He faces up to 5 years in prison and forfeiture of $1.4 million. »
According to CoinDeskthe creator of NFTs Mutant Ape Yacht Club pleaded guilty yesterday in the fraud case which allowed him toraise up to $3 million (in BTC and other cryptos) from investors.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney, provided these details:
“ Our office is keenly aware that criminal actors are taking advantage of the constant pace of innovation in digital assets and the desire to engage with cryptocurrencies to perpetrate large-scale fraud. »
For his part, Michel, known under the pseudonym “James”, admitted that he never intended to defraud anyone. But ” the community has become way too toxic ” to his eyes. “ I recognize that our behavior led to this “, he admitted in court.
Was he not afraid of reprisals?
At the start of 2022, Aurélien Michel had the brilliant idea of launching a collection of NFTs inspired by the very famous Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC): the Mutant Ape Planet. He used it to lure investors, mainly Americans, with promises of gifts, tokens including staking functions as well as merchandise collections. However, nothing has been submitted since.
At the time he was disappearing, Aurélien Michel was able to form a nice jackpot of 2.9 million dollars. ZachXBT believed at the time that the French scammer had committed other frauds using non-fungible tokens. The blockchain analyst had even established a link between Michel’s Binance addresses and accounts linked to the Crazy Camels and Fashion Ape NFT scams.
Hence his question: was the scammer unaware of the transparency of the blockchain to the point of ignoring the transparency of blockchain or was he simply naive?
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