NFT scam: British Aurélien Michel sentenced to a month in prison in New York

The British from Pabu Aurélien Michel, 26, was sentenced this Friday by a judge in New York to a month in prison for NFT fraud of $2.9 million. The Briton has also been fined 15,000 dollars, accompanied by one year of supervised release and the detention of 1.4 million dollars (1.3 million euros), indicates the press service of the state prosecutor’s office.

So the judge did not follow the prosecutor’s requests, who asked for more than three years in prison. Of course, Aurélien Michel will not return behind bars, because he has already served this prison sentence: he was imprisoned for a time in the Brooklyn penitentiary, immediately after being sent to the held at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in January 2023. He was released and was living, awaiting trial, on probation and under house arrest in New York.

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At the beginning of 2022, Aurélien Michel launched, together with others, the “Mutant Ape Planet”, a series of virtual images related to NFTs plagiarizing one of the most famous collections of the genre. The sale allowed him to raise 2.9 million dollars (2.7 million euros). It promised customers a number of services to increase the value of these NFTs.

But the project was eventually abandoned, causing the price of “Mutant Ape Planet” to plummet. A “rug pull” type scam, to be fair, the intentional nature of which keeps them abandoned after collecting money. Prosecutors said it was a “modern get-rich-quick scheme,” according to Bloomberg.

The British had also pleaded guilty. American justice has also linked Aurélien Michel to other NFT scams, including the “Fashion Ape” and “Crazy Camels” NFTs.