It was selling NFTs — supposedly tamper-proof digital certificates of authenticity — promising its customers “numerous perks and rewards.” Aurélien Michel, a 24-year-old Frenchman, was arrested at a New York airport on fraud charges.
According to a statement from the US Department of Justice, Aurélien Michel allegedly sold these NFTs and then withdrew the buyers’ funds from the company’s cryptocurrency wallets, “lined his pockets with almost $3 million of money belonging to investors”. The young man was about to go to the United Arab Emirates where he lives, when he was intercepted by the American authorities at JFK airport in New York. He had to be brought before a judge.
Aurélien Michel admitted to misappropriating funds during an exchange with buyers on social networks transcribed in the US Department of Justice press release, but rejected responsibility for his actions on the NFT buying community, assuring that “it had become too toxic.”
