Brooklyn’s District Attorney said his office has shut down 40 fraudulent non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace websites after an 85-year-old artist was conned out of $135,000 by a scammer.
The victim was contacted on LinkedIn by someone posing as an art dealer who convinced him to mint his artwork on a fake NFT marketplace resembling the New York-based OpenSea, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said on Dec. 6.
He was later told he made $300,000 in profits — but in order to access it, he had to send a $135,000 “fee,” which he sourced from fully liquidating his retirement account, credit card payments and a loan.
He soon realized he wasn’t going to get the $300,000 promised, leaving him “emotionally and financially devastated,” the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said.
District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the “tactics used in this case” led its investigators “to a network of fraudulent websites that specifically scammed artists.”
“It is my hope that by shutting these domains and raising awareness about this scheme, we will prevent others from falling victim to this scam.”
His office added two other artists from Georgia and California also fell for the same NFT scam scheme.
The District Attorney’s Virtual Currency Unit traced the funds to accounts at an exchange in Nigeria, which “primarily cashed out for Nigerian currency — foreclosing the ability for recovery.”
It added the faked OpenSea website, also “appeared to be controlled and paid for from Nigeria,” and that some of the now-shuttered websites prompted visitors to input their crypto wallet seed phrase, “which would give scammers the ability to completely drain the contents of users’ online wallet.”
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The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office emphasized the importance of only using established NFT marketplaces to sell work and to be alert at all times for phishing attempts via email or phishing websites that appear to resemble well-known NFT marketplaces.
It also told artists never to reveal their crypto wallet seed phrase.
“If it seems too good to be true, it likely is,” it said. “Do your own research and seek opinions from fellow artists.”
