25/03/2022 Two 20-year-olds charged in alleged $1.1M NFT scam

Prosecutors in New Yorkā€™s Southern District Thursday charged two 20-year-olds in connection with an alleged NFT scam.

Ethan Vinh Nguyen and Andre Marcus Quiddaoen Llacuna were charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering for allegedly selling bogus NFTs to investors before abandoning the project, shutting down their website, and absconding with $1.1 million in digital funds.

NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital assets supposedly made unique and therefore scarce through block-chain technology. In recent years NFTs have fueled aboom in sales of digital art.

ā€œThe trending market and demand for NFT investments has not only drawn the attention of real artists, but scam artists as well,ā€ Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent In Charge Ricky Patel said in a statement.ā€œThe arrested thieves allegedly hid behind online identities where they promised investors rewards, giveaways, and exclusive opportunities before implementing their ā€˜rug pullā€™ schemeā€“ leaving investors with empty pockets and no legitimate investment.ā€

Prosecutors say the pair had pulled up stakes on their so-called ā€œFrostiesā€ series of NFTs ā€” deleting the website and transferring the $1.1 million across several virtual wallets ā€” within hours of selling out the digital tokens.

"Embers" website Ethan Vinh Nguyen and Andre Marcus Quiddaoen Llacuna were charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering for allegedly selling bogus NFTs to investors before abandoning the project.U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Nguyen and Llacuna were planning to repeat the digital fly-by-night act with a March 26 NFT drop called ā€œEmbersā€, prosecutors said.

The pair face up to 20 years in prison in convicted.

Arts

https://nypost.com/2022/03/24/two-20-year-olds-charged-in-alleged-1-1m-nft-scam/

Interesting NFTs
Seerstout
A character from The Beacon
#95455
By OthersideDeployer
The Harvest
An anthropomorphic figure stands, wide eyed, staring at the viewer; its body masculine, muscular, and humanoid. Its ā€œmindā€ dissociates into a conglomerate of structures resembling feathers, grain, teethā€“as well as a radial flower ā€œnodeā€, casting linear rays throughout the composition. To his left, a vat of bodies gesture and writhe in a kind of amniotic soup, attended by a video game robot. The bot's red display reads ā€œuWuā€. Behind the robot and filling the left side of the composition is an archaic figure composed of a variety of vintage objects and symbols. Among them are a hardbound book with ancient cuneiform scripts, indicating barley, beer, bread, ox, house, and sky, behind which is a grimacing, salivating jagged toothed maw; and an old Commodore floppy drive. The figureā€™s head tilts toward an illuminated crescent moon, suggesting the Egyptian Sacred Bull. The archaic figure is composed of a variety of mutating cells, which shift in color, and pattern; eventually breaking free into an ephemeral broadcast of bubbles which move across the background. The work came into being against a psychological introspection, which included associations to pop culture such as alien abduction and pod people, as well as quite a bit of reflection on grains as a symbol of civilization, agriculture, sustenance, life, and imbibing (mainly whiskies).
Crossroad
LIMITED EDITION 1/1 | includes signed limited edition prints of all 3 states (pre-election, Trump win, Biden win) This piece is a first for Nifty, a token that will change based on the outcome of the election. If anything is constant about the times we now live in, it's uncertainty. This uncertainty is perfectly encapsulated in this piece of artwork as the person buying the piece will not know the final artwork. The artwork will be one state at auction before the election, and after the results of the election are known, will forever change to reflect a Trump or Biden win. PLEASE FUCKING NOTE: If trump wins, this token will change to that video of sexy boi king trump stomping through hell FOREVER. I donā€™t want you coming back to me bitching that you spent $2M* on this and now itā€™s a video of orangeman going HAM and itā€™s keeping u up at night popping mad boners. should have voted bruh. *and stfu that this isnā€™t gonna be worth a fuckton more when I hit 30 years of everydays and have a permanent collection in the MOMA. smh.
Bloody Monkey
Artist notes: straight up side ya head + VERY valuable RED CIRCLE!! WOW.!!