Creator of Mutant Ape Planet detained in New York for suspected $2.9 million NFT scam.
Aurelien Michel, a French national, was detained on January 4 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. According to homeland security agent Ivan J. Arvelo, Michel “perpetrated a rug pull scheme” and stole “almost $3 million from investors for his own personal use.” And he said:
Purchasers of Mutant Ape Planet NFTs thought they were investing in a trendy new collectable, but they were deceived and received none of the promised benefits.”
According to Internal Revenue Service agent Thomas Fattorusso, who was mentioned in a news release from the Department of Justice, “Michel misled investors by making false statements of, among other things, gifts, tokens with staking functionality, and item collections.” However, the announcement states that after all of the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) had been purchased, Michel withdrew the money.
According to the statement, Michel told the audience in a social media chat that he had pulled a rug, adding, “We never planned to rug, but the community got much beyond toxic.”
6,797 NFTs are housed in the collection, which is a rip-off of the well-known Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. Since its inception in January 2022, the collection has sold a total of 567 ether, although both its average price and sales volume have plummeted.
After the arrest, those in possession of the collection have been telling their side of the tale on Twitter, pointing out that James had tried to lay the responsibility for his departure on the community, who had grown suspicious due to the absence of activity.
Since then, the project has been taken over by the community, which is working to give it new life under the leadership of a user going by the screen name HTMadge.
Rug pulls, a sort of exit scam in which the developers of a project abruptly depart or remove liquidity from the platform, was the most frequent type of attack last year, accounting for 119 events and $200 million in stolen cash, according to a DappRadar analysis published on December 21.