- His collection was a rip-off of Yuga Labs’ Mutant Ape Yacht Club project
- "Toxic" community made him rug the project
- He faces five years in prison, but must pay compensation of $1.4 million
French national Aurelien Michel, who created the Mutant Ape Planet nonfungible token (NFT) collection, has pled guilty to charges of wire fraud in a New York court of law, CoinTelegraph reported, citing a statement by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
His collection was a rip-off of Yuga Labs’ Mutant Ape Yacht Club project. Michel perpetrated a “rug pull” and cheated investors out of $3 million in connection with the fake collection.
False promises
According to prosecutors from the New York Department of Justice, Michel and his accomplices sold the NFTs with false promises of benefits and rewards, aimed at enhancing demand for the collection.
Prosecutors said the perpetrators purposefully failed to make good on these promises, siphoning off earnings worth millions of dollars for their personal gain.
A “toxic” community suffers the consequences
Authorities arrested Michel in New York on Jan. 4, 2023 on charges related to the scheme. He admitted to the NFT collection’s community on social media the next day that he had executed a rug pull with the excuse that he hadn’t wanted to, but “the community went way too toxic.”
Rug pulls are not uncommon in the world of NFTs. In this case, Michel will not do more than five years in prison, but he must pay compensation of $1.4 million.
The history of BAYC and MAYC
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) emerged as one of the most successful NFT projects of 2021. That year, its spinoff Mutant Ape Yacht Club reaped the benefits of this affiliation. BAYC had recorded a sales volume of 276,700 Ethereum (ETH) that year, as Banklesstimes.com reported at the time.
The Mutant Ape Planet, which consisted of 6,797 NFTs on the Ethereum Mainnet, has been removed from the NFT platform OpenSea. The fake collection’s sales volume was more than 320 ether in February 2022, but began to decline thereafter. It was around zero when Michel was arrested in January 2023.
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