Charges Filed After Primate Pilfers Products from Imitation OpenSea Site
In 2021, a Moroccan man has been charged by US prosecutors for allegedly pilfering $450,000 worth of cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens, which included two Bored Apes. The charges stem from his alleged creation of a counterfeit version of the OpenSea digital marketplace.
Soufiane Oulahyane, 25, set up a website to trick victims into revealing a seed phrase — a series of random words that unlock a crypto wallet — to gain access to real accounts on OpenSea, the largest marketplace for NFTs, the Justice Department said Monday. .
The practice is known as “scamming,” which is “one of the oldest tricks in the criminal playbook,” Manhattan District Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Oulahyane adapted this old tool for use in a new and evolving arena – the crypto space.”
Crypto-related fraud is increasing its criminal presence as more people hold virtual assets. In May, prosecutors won the first-ever insider-trading trial of former OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain, who was convicted of trading with confidential information about which tokens were supposed to be displayed on the marketplace’s homepage.
Prosecutors accused Oulahyane of stealing the cryptocurrency from the wallet of a New York victim who was not identified. He also sold NFTs of 39 victims on OpenSea, including a cigar-smoking cartoon monkey in a sailor suit, the DOJ said. Another image showed a robotic dog with a missile battery mounted on its head, the government said.
According to the government, Oulahyane paid for sponsored links in an unidentified search engine. Users who clicked on the link were allegedly directed to a fake website that looked like OpenSea’s login page. The victim entered a seed sentence, which was immediately sent to Oulahyane.
According to prosecutors, the victim paid 9.88 ethers, or about $18,700, for the monkey and 1,789 ethers, or $3,400, for the dog. Ether is the original cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain.
Oulahyane is charged with wire fraud, use of an unauthorized access device, aggravated identity theft and use of an access device to steal $1,000 or more. Fraud can result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
The case is USA v. Oulahyane, 23-cr-215, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
