NFT 策劃者被判共謀進行電匯詐欺和洗錢罪

Berman Jerry Nowlin Jr 是一名 21 歲的阿拉巴馬州居民，在 NFT 社區中化名“Repulse”和“Zayous”，他面臨最高 5 年聯邦監禁的處罰。

A Florida jury has found the alleged mastermind behind the UndeadApes and Undead Lady Apes NFT (non-fungible token) collections guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

佛羅裡達州陪審團認定 UndeadApes 和 Undead Lady Apes NFT（不可替代代幣）收藏品背後的主謀犯有串謀電信詐欺和洗錢罪。

Berman Jerry Nowlin Jr, a 21-year-old resident of Alabama known by the aliases “Repulse” and “Zayous” in the NFT community, faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison, with sentencing set for 23 January 2025. His co-conspirator, 25-year-old Devin Alan Rhoden, an active US Air Force officer who went by “Denny” and “Deviinz” online, pleaded guilty to the same counts on 24 May. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for 20 November.

小伯曼·傑裡·諾林(Berman Jerry Nowlin Jr) 是一名21 歲的阿拉巴馬州居民，在NFT 社區中化名“Repulse”和“Zayous”，他面臨最高5 年監禁的聯邦監獄刑罰，判決日期為2025 年1 月23 日。 5 月24 日承認了同樣的罪名。他的量刑聽證會定於 11 月 20 日舉行。

Nowlin created the UndeadApes and Undead Lady Apes (zombie-fied riffs on the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series) with his co-defendant and acted as a developer for both projects, coding the Solana smart contracts and creating the NFTs with a blockchain art engine. After Rhoden initially marketed the NFTs on social media, the average sale price of the collections increased, reselling for the cryptocurrency equivalent of $360 over a mint price of approximately $5.

Nowlin 與他的共同被告一起創建了UndeadApes 和Undead Lady Apes（流行的Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT 系列中的殭屍即興重複），並擔任這兩個項目的開發人員，編寫了Solana 智能合約並使用區塊鏈藝術創建了NFT引擎。在 Rhoden 最初在社交媒體上推銷 NFT 後，這些收藏的平均售價有所上漲，轉售價格相當於 360 美元的加密貨幣，而鑄幣價格約為 5 美元。

In April 2022 Nowlin and Rhoden allegedly used the popularity of their NFT products to engage in a “rug pull” investment fraud scheme, in which perpetrators purposefully abandon an endeavor after taking investors' funds, leaving paying customers with a functionally worthless asset. According to filings earlier this year, the business partners announced plans to mint a third NFT collection, dubbed Undead Tombstone, exaggerating their intentions to invest in the project and making misleading statements about its relationship to the hot NFT commodity Stoned Ape Crew. Nowlin and Rhoden minted 632 Undead Tombstone NFTs before precipitously terminating the process; soon after, the pair deleted their social media accounts and cut off all venues for investor communication, allegedly absconding with a total of $135,000.

2022 年4 月，Nowlin 和Rhoden 據稱利用其NFT 產品的受歡迎程度進行了「拉動」投資詐欺計劃，犯罪者在拿走投資者資金後故意放棄一項努力，為付費客戶留下了功能上毫無價值的資產。根據今年稍早的文件，業務合作夥伴宣布計劃鑄造第三個NFT 系列，名為Undead Tombstone，誇大了他們投資該項目的意圖，並就其與熱門NFT 商品Stoned Ape Crew 的關係做出了誤導性陳述。 Nowlin 和 Rhoden 鑄造了 632 個 Undead Tombstone NFT，然後突然終止了這個過程；不久之後，兩人刪除了自己的社群媒體帳戶，並切斷了所有與投資者溝通的場所，據稱共潛逃13.5萬美元。

Nowlin allegedly used a decentralised blockchain called TornadoCash to “chain-hop” the fraudulent funds from the Solana blockchain to the Ethereum blockchain, further obscuring his trail of cybercriminality. After transferring the cryptocurrency into US dollars, Nowlin and Rhoden managed to extract $400,000 from the sales of the three collections.

據稱，Nowlin 使用名為 TornadoCash 的去中心化區塊鏈將詐欺資金從 Solana 區塊鏈「鏈跳」到以太坊區塊鏈，進一步掩蓋了他的網路犯罪軌跡。將加密貨幣兌換成美元後，Nowlin 和 Rhoden 成功從這三個系列的銷售中提取了 40 萬美元。

“These cybercriminals concocted a scheme to defraud investors through a grand illusion and orchestrated a ‘rug pull’ to steal money from unsuspecting people, and laundered their ill-gotten gains though other cybercurrencies,” Homeland Security Investigations' assistant special agent in charge in Tampa, John Dumas, in a statement following the jury's ruling on 31 October.

負責坦帕的國土安全調查局助理特工表示：“這些網絡犯罪分子炮製了一個騙局，通過宏大的幻想來欺騙投資者，並精心策劃了一場'騙局'，從毫無戒心的人們那裡竊取資金，並透過其他網路貨幣洗錢他們的不義之財。

Rhoden and Nowlin’s legal woes come amid a string of high-profile lawsuits that have sought to define the legal and regulatory contours of Web3. On 11 October a group of NFT holders sued Eden Gallery and the artist Gal Yosef over an alleged failure to follow through on promised perks of a private members’ club for buyers of the Meta Eagle NFT collection, another alleged version of the “rug pull” investor fraud scheme (a notable lack of hot air balloon rides was a particular sticking point).

Rhoden 和 Nowlin 的法律困境是在一系列引人注目的訴訟中發生的，這些訴訟試圖定義 Web3 的法律和監管輪廓。 10 月 11 日，一群 NFT 持有者起訴 Eden Gallery 和藝術家 Gal Yosef，指控其未能兌現為 Meta Eagle NFT 藏品買家提供私人會員俱樂部的承諾福利，這是另一個所謂的“地毯拉動”版本投資者詐欺計劃（明顯缺乏熱氣球乘坐是一個特別的癥結）。

On 29 July, the musician Jonathan Mann and conceptual artist and lawyer Brian Frye filed a lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission seeking declaratory judgement that their planned NFT projects do not constitute securities and contending that selling art on the blockchain does not transform the art itself into a financial instrument. In May 2023, Nathaniel Chastain —a former employee of OpenSea, one of the leading NFT trading platforms—was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering in a case that was cast as the “first insider trading” indictment in the Web3 sector.

7 月29 日，音樂家Jonathan Mann 和概念藝術家兼律師Brian Frye 對美國證券交易委員會提起訴訟，尋求宣告性判決，認定他們計劃中的NFT 項目不構成證券，並辯稱在區塊鏈上出售藝術品並不會改變藝術品本身變成了一種金融工具。 2023 年 5 月，領先的 NFT 交易平台之一 OpenSea 的前員工 Nathaniel Chastain 被判犯有電信詐欺和洗錢罪，這起案件被稱為 Web3 領域的「第一起內幕交易」起訴書。