Brooklyn DA Shuts Down Fraudulent NFT Domains in Scam Crackdown
In a significant crackdown on digital fraud, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez has announced the closure of 40 fraudulent NFT marketplace domains aimed at scamming artists. This operation was triggered by a case involving an 85-year-old Brooklyn painter who was defrauded of $135,000 by scammers posing as art dealers. The scammers initially approached the artist on LinkedIn, claiming to represent a fake platform called "OpenSea/Private Mint," designed to mimic the legitimate NFT marketplace OpenSea.
The fraudsters convinced the artist to mint his artwork as NFTs and pay a series of fees in exchange for promised earnings of over $300,000 in fabricated Bitcoin profits. Believing the offer, the artist went to extreme lengths to fund the fees, liquidating his IRA, maxing out credit cards, and taking out a loan to pay the scammers. Gonzalez stated that this case led investigators to uncover a broader network of fraudulent websites specifically targeting artists, with the hope that closing these domains and raising awareness would prevent further victims.
While the seizure of these 40 domains is a significant step forward, the operation is not a permanent solution. Scammers can easily recreate similar schemes by using identical website templates and slight variations of domain names. Other cases of similar frauds have been reported, with scammers using platforms like Instagram and Twitter to approach artists with offers of large cryptocurrency payments in exchange for creating NFTs, only to charge bogus "minting fees" through fake platforms.
This crackdown comes at a time when NFTs are seeing a resurgence in popularity, and cryptocurrency prices are reaching new highs. The operation highlights the ongoing challenges in combatting digital fraud, particularly in the NFT space, and stresses the importance of vigilance among artists and other potential victims of such scams.
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