According to Cointelegraph, the FBI will contact and return $1.14 million to victims of the CluCoin scam through NFT. The scam began in 2021 with the fake project CluCoin launched by Austin Michael Taylor. Taylor pleaded guilty on August 15 and admitted to using investor funds for online gambling.
The FBI will notify “identified victims” through NFTs, marking the first time a law enforcement agency has publicly stated that it will use NFTs to contact victims. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also asked anyone who believes they are a victim to provide relevant information to the FBI.
After launching CLU through an ICO in 2021, Taylor turned to minting NFTs, developing new games, and proposing to launch a metaverse platform. On April 4, 2022, he hosted the "NFTCon: Into the metaverse" conference in Miami to attract more investment.
Following the meeting, Taylor began withdrawing funds from wallets that controlled some of CLU investors’ funds and transferred $1.14 million into his own accounts and then to online casinos between May and December 2022. Taylor publicly apologized in January 2023 and agreed to repay the $1.14 million.
Taylor will be sentenced on October 31 and faces up to 20 years in prison. The FBI also warned users to be wary of scammers posing as cryptocurrency exchanges and remote job recruitment scams involving cryptocurrency.