NFT 策划者被判共谋进行电汇欺诈和洗钱罪

Berman Jerry Nowlin Jr 是一名 21 岁的阿拉巴马州居民，在 NFT 社区中化名“Repulse”和“Zayous”，他面临最高 5 年联邦监禁的处罚。

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.

佛罗里达州陪审团认定 UndeadApes 和 Undead Lady Apes NFT（不可替代代币）收藏品背后的主谋犯有串谋电信欺诈和洗钱罪。

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·杰里·诺林 (Berman Jerry Nowlin Jr) 是一名 21 岁的阿拉巴马州居民，在 NFT 社区中化名“Repulse”和“Zayous”，他面临最高 5 年监禁的联邦监狱刑罚，判决日期为 2025 年 1 月 23 日。同谋、25 岁的德文·艾伦·罗登 (Devin Alan Rhoden) 是一名现役美国空军军官，网名为“Denny”和“Deviinz”，他于 5 月 24 日承认了同样的罪名。他的量刑听证会定于 11 月 20 日举行。

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 与他的共同被告一起创建了 UndeadApes 和 Undead Lady Apes（流行的 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT 系列中的僵尸即兴重复），并担任这两个项目的开发人员，编写了 Solana 智能合约并使用区块链艺术创建了 NFT引擎。在 Rhoden 最初在社交媒体上推销 NFT 后，这些藏品的平均售价有所上涨，转售价格相当于 360 美元的加密货币，而铸币价格约为 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 据称利用其 NFT 产品的受欢迎程度进行了“拉动”投资欺诈计划，犯罪者在拿走投资者资金后故意放弃一项努力，为付费客户留下了功能上毫无价值的资产。根据今年早些时候的文件，业务合作伙伴宣布计划铸造第三个 NFT 系列，名为 Undead Tombstone，夸大了他们投资该项目的意图，并就其与热门 NFT 商品 Stoned Ape Crew 的关系做出了误导性陈述。 Nowlin 和 Rhoden 铸造了 632 个 Undead Tombstone NFT，然后突然终止了该过程；不久之后，两人删除了自己的社交媒体账户，并切断了所有与投资者沟通的场所，据称共潜逃13.5万美元。

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.

据称，Nowlin 使用名为 TornadoCash 的去中心化区块链将欺诈资金从 Solana 区块链“链跳”到以太坊区块链，进一步掩盖了他的网络犯罪踪迹。将加密货币兑换成美元后，Nowlin 和 Rhoden 成功从这三个系列的销售中提取了 40 万美元。

“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.

负责坦帕的国土安全调查局助理特工表示：“这些网络犯罪分子炮制了一个骗局，通过宏大的幻想来欺骗投资者，并精心策划了一场‘骗局’，从毫无戒心的人们那里窃取资金，并通过其他网络货币洗钱他们的不义之财。”约翰·杜马斯 (John Dumas) 在陪审团 10 月 31 日做出裁决后发表的一份声明中。

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诉讼中发生的，这些诉讼试图定义 Web3 的法律和监管轮廓。 10 月 11 日，一群 NFT 持有者起诉 Eden Gallery 和艺术家 Gal Yosef，指控其未能兑现为 Meta Eagle NFT 藏品买家提供私人会员俱乐部的承诺福利，这是另一个所谓的“地毯拉动”版本投资者欺诈计划（明显缺乏热气球乘坐是一个特别的症结）。

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，音乐家 Jonathan Mann 和概念艺术家兼律师 Brian Frye 对美国证券交易委员会提起诉讼，寻求宣告性判决，认定他们计划中的 NFT 项目不构成证券，并辩称在区块链上出售艺术品并不会改变艺术品本身变成了一种金融工具。 2023 年 5 月，领先的 NFT 交易平台之一 OpenSea 的前员工 Nathaniel Chastain 被判犯有电信欺诈和洗钱罪，这起案件被称为 Web3 领域的“第一起内幕交易”起诉书。