ChainCatcher reported that the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday that three British individuals were accused of planning a $3 million scam related to the "Evolution Ape" NFT series. Mohamed-Amin Atcha, Mohamed Rilaz Waleedh and Daood Hassan were accused of wire fraud and money laundering in their plan.
The charges stem from a 2021 scheme to allow NFT collectors to buy "10,000 unique" Ethereum-based NFTs called "Evolved Apes" that could then be used in an online battle game, the Justice Department said. The defendants received a total of 798 ETH, worth about $2.7 million at the time.
"As alleged, the defendants inflated the price of digital artwork by falsely promising to develop a video game," Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. "They allegedly took investors' funds, never developed the game, and kept the proceeds for themselves."