The developer of a Mutant Ape Yacht Club knock-off assortment — Mutant Ape Planet — has been arrested in New York and charged with defrauding traders of $2.9 million in a “rug pull scheme.”
The arrest happened on Jan. 4 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, with homeland safety agent Ivan J. Arvelo alleging that French nationwide “Aurelien Michel perpetrated a rug pull scheme” and stole “almost $3 million from traders for his personal private use.” He added:
“Purchasers of Mutant Ape Planet NFTs thought they were investing in a trendy new collectible, but they were deceived and received none of the promised benefits.”
Internal Revenue Service agent Thomas Fattorusso was quoted in a press release from the Department of Justice as saying that “Michel defrauded investors by making false representations of, amongst other things, giveaways, tokens with staking features, and merchandise collections.” But Michel withdrew the funds once the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) were sold out, the release says.
According to the statement, Michel admitted to the community via a social media chat that he had perpetrated a rug pull, saying “we never intended to rug but the community went way too toxic.”
The collection — a knock-off of the popular Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT collection — consists of 6,797 NFTs stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection has had a total of 567 Ether (ETH) in sales but has seen its average price and sales volume crater since it launched in January 2022.
Following the arrest, holders of the collection have been sharing their side of the story via Twitter, noting that James had attempted to blame his departure on the community who were becoming skeptical due to the lack of activity.
When I’m actuality what was taking place was the founders have been truly not holding to their promised utility main in to individuals dropping belief after which in the future the founders utterly disappeared with no notes, nothing. Things went sideways right here as a lot of individuals left the community-
— PerfectElectro (@electro_perfect) January 5, 2023
The undertaking has since been taken over by the neighborhood who’s trying to breathe some life again into it, spearheaded by a consumer with the pseudonym HTMadge.
According to a Dec. 21 DappRadar report, rug pulls — a kind of exit rip-off the place the creators of a undertaking abruptly abandon or withdraw liquidity from the platform — have been the most typical sort of assault final 12 months, accounting for 119 incidents and $200 million in stolen funds.
Related: Magic Eden to refund customers after faux NFTs bought on account of exploit
Popular influencer and former grownup movie star Lana Rhoades was accused of being behind one of many larger rug pulls of 2022, after reportedly strolling away with $1.5 million from the minting of an NFT undertaking that has seen lower than 1 ETH price of secondary market gross sales since its launch final February.
