NFT Community Puts an End to an Alleged $20M NFT Scam Before Sale Completion

After a series of scam charges and previous rug pulls occurred, NFT project Squiggles was delisted from OpenSea.

Crypto and NFT enthusiasts put an end to the alleged scammers' rug pull after a 60-page document detailing how the team operated and conducted the scams was published.

Late Wednesday, online detective and Youtuber Coffeezilla released a new video detailing how he, along with members of the blockchain community, stopped a rumored $20 million non-fungible tokens, or NFT, fraud from becoming a reality. According to Coffeezilla, there was a lot of fan anticipation for a new crypto project named "Squiggles," which had an NFT drop set scheduled on February 10. Squiggles had almost 230,000 followers on Twitter at the time.

An unknown user produced a 60-page article claiming Squiggles' creators were paid puppets just hours before the planned drop. At the same time, the real people behind the project were said to be members of a network of serial NFT scam artists known as "NFT Factory LA."

While citing the case, Coffeezilla narrates:

"It meticulously documents allegations of NFT Factory LA, consisting of "Gavin, Gabe and Ali," behind not just Squiggles but several NFT scams. These include League of Sacred Devils, League of Divine Beings, Vault of Gyms, Sinful Souls, Dirty Dogs, Lucky Buddhas, and on and on".

The alleged scams did not go unnoticed; however, Gavin, Gabe, and Ali were quickly doxed by angry crypto enthusiasts for organizing the alleged rug-pulls. As a result, they needed to hire "stooges" to work on future projects like Squiggles. However, pictures circulated on Instagram prior to the project's $20 million NFT drop, allegedly showing the founder of Squiggles, Arsalan, and Gavin in the same Rolls Royce. They later appeared at the same club holding a sign that read "Squiggles Boys," and a photo of Gavin, Gabe, and Ali in the same location was posted. "Pretty quickly, people put two and two together," said Coffeezilla. The project was delisted by OpenSea just hours after it was launched.

The alleged scammers appear to have also attempted to manipulate the volume of the NFT sale.

"[Via EtherScan] A single account spent 800 ETH [$2.384 million], which is over $2 million spread across two transactions that created hundreds of new wallets. These shadow wallets then bought three Squiggles NFTs and immediately listed them on OpenSea for less money." Goffeezilla stated. He further added, "we don't know if this resulted in profits or losses, either way, they were stopped from making the $20 million they could have made, and that's good."