Mutant Ape Planet’s developer has reportedly been arrested following allegations that they scammed buyers of tens of millions of {dollars}. Whereas the information is unsurprising for a knock-off of Mutant Ape Yacht Membership, it was amongst many guarantees that went wholly unfulfilled.
The arrest was made on Wednesday Jan 4th at JFK airport in New York, the place police arrested Aurelien Michel – the developer and French Citizen residing within the UAE earlier than his arrest.
Together with raffles, rewards and different exclusives promised by Michel, he was charged for luring buyers into offering funds by promising the above, together with a deliberate metaverse. In complete, Michel is accused of stealing over $2.9 million by means of the undertaking.
With the closure of the related NFT sale, he and his collaborators then transferred funds to exterior wallets. Sadly for Michel, a number of of those wallets had been immediately traceable to him.
Together with being traceable, police declare that Michel took to the group’s Discord and admitted to the rug-pull whereas utilizing the nickname ‘James’ to guard his identification.
The unlucky actuality is that whereas NFT tasks have been making an attempt to buck the unfavorable tendencies brought on by exit scams, rug pull operations stay a persistent downside. Prevalence within the area, nonetheless, is stemmed considerably due to investigations and policing.
