Two 20-year-olds charged with running NFT scam

Mainstream interest in NFTs has skyrocketed, but with the good also comes the bad.

A frosty fraud

It was a textbook ‘rug pull’ scam. The two 20-year-olds, charged with wire fraud on Thursday, managed to rake in $1.1 million before their scam came to an end. Fun while it lasted, hey boys?

For scammers looking to make money from NFTs, the rug pull is the weapon of choice. This entails luring in investors with big promises, only to take the profits, pull the plug and get out with your cash. In the digital world, that can sometimes be enough to see you home and dry. But this time, for Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna, it wasn’t quite enough.

Separating the wheat from the chaff

The NFT space has drawn in the good, the bad and the ugly, and while many people are making these investments with no such issues at all, it’s never been a better idea to exercise caution than when buying NFTs.

NFT marketplaces are doing their best to crackdown on frauds, but all it takes is one person to pull the trigger too quickly, and BAM – their hard-earned money is gone.

Before buying any token, make sure you research the developer and see what, if any, history they have of making honest transactions. If they don’t, it might be time to check yourself.