16/02/2022 UK makes first seizure of NFTs in tax crackdown

London—British tax authorities said on Monday they had made their first seizure of non-fungible tokens in a crackdown on suspected criminal activity to hide money.

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs seized three NFTs after investigating an attempt to defraud the public coffers of 1.4 million pounds ($1.9 million).

Around 5,000 pounds worth of other crypto assets were also seized.

The probe also led to the arrest of three people for alleged value added tax repayment fraud involving 250 fake companies.

Nick Sharp, deputy director economic crime at HMRC, said the seizures of the NFTs, which had not yet been valued, served as a warning to anyone who thought they could use crypto assets to hide money.

"We constantly adapt to new technology to ensure we keep pace with how criminals and evaders look to conceal their assets," he said in a statement.

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NFTs are a from of crypto asset that uses blockchain to record the ownership status of digital files such as images, videos and even items within online games.

Arts

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/14/tech/uk-nft-seizure/index.html

Interesting NFTs
Legendary Bitrue Wheat
This market stand gives 5 wheat bonus to surrounding crafting buildings.
Traffic
Traffic explores a crossroads between the metaverse & reality through organized chaos. The complexity of this aural / visual landscape demanded over 200 hours of design time between Slimesunday & 3LAU. Every detail of this piece was built from scratch, from the reflective puddled pavement to the stabbing synthesis of the song. We think we'll be spending a lot more time in the metaverse in the future, don't you?
Like a Human 1 #3/3
Creative Challenge - 0xCert Collaboration
The Scion
A young figure caught in a moment of distraction, aware only ephemerally of his unconscious being, as it engages in psychological and psychedelic layer spaces. His right arm casually cradles a moray eel; the figure is comfortable but not truly aware of the potentials for danger in such negligence. His shirt reads “Bello” in Pokemon style font, harkening back to a childhood straddling the millennial threshold. To his right side, out of the unconscious deep, shrouded alien heads propagate as a fractal totem, each new iteration a more sophisticated rendering of emotional masking over the cold mystery of the greys. As the scion of the Budgie-Sattva, the young man, in his distraction, is also simultaneously aware of higher levels of self discovery. To his left a psychological topology sets beneath the oracle side of an 8 ball ,hovering; its message a purest concept of acceptance. The “Scion” lettering is in 80’s HeMan style bold declaration. The lower right side of the painting is like a hybrid of melon, feathers, and seeds. The crystals in the background bring light; conducted, refracted, reflected, and dispersed, to balance the dark shadow of the figure’s physical body. The aura of the scion succeeds in layers to point, with a finger, and the crown chakra, toward a center of a mandala existing as nigh pure application of strokes, in essence painterly abstraction, but also revealing hints of the Aura of migraine, and the bi-hemispherical nature of the brain–noting concerns of the possibility of inherited mental disease. Yet the flourish of chakra as it sets against that center is robust, active, coherent, and reveling against all fear. Fundamentally, the piece speaks to the activation of one’s potential to begin to “Know Thyself”, and find greater awareness out of the enigmas of the mind–as an inculcated seed given to the rich soil of one’s own birthright.
Domestic - 2017
“Domestic is the manifestation of the cultural patriarchy in my home. The wooden "woman's" tragedy of false desire. It was done in a moment of breakup. The hollow 3d body & its lost eyes, invites you to fill up. Trying to reach out, encumbered and wrapped in its own fragility, the new mother rises."