Prosecutors charge Madagascar scammers in NFT-stealing scheme based on fake online dating profiles

Pro­se­cu­tors an­noun­ced char­ges against six alle­ged scam­mers based out of Afri­ca who tar­ge­ted Ame­ri­cans with fake non-fun­gi­ble token (NFT) in­vest­ment scams by po­sing as women on da­ting web­si­tes, net­ting hun­dreds of vic­tims.

Ac­cor­ding to an af­fi­da­vit for the arrest of of the six peo­ple — Chui Kok Wa, Gis­len Neu­keu, Sha­mu­sa Nin­sii­ma, Cle­ment Mu­gi­ra­ne­za, Mer­vei­lle Mu­da­cu­mu­ra and Ni­co­de­mus Hin­gi­ma Mon­yan­cha — the cri­mi­nal group with con­nec­tions to China and Ma­lay­sia ope­ned a scam com­pound in Ma­da­gas­car early last year.

“In the sche­me, scam­mers posed as beau­ti­ful women who met vic­tims on da­ting web­si­tes, even­tually en­lis­ting them to con­nect their cry­pto­cu­rrency wa­llets to frau­du­lent web­si­tes as­so­cia­ted with the NFT in­vest­ments,” the Jus­ti­ce De­part­ment said in a news re­lea­se Tues­day. “Once con­nec­ted, the scam­mers wi­lled the vic­tims to con­ti­nue to fund their cry­pto­cu­rrency wa­llets, and then su­rrep­ti­tiously pu­lled money from the vic­tims’ wa­llets without their know­led­ge.”

The FBI iden­ti­fied ap­pro­xi­ma­tely 74 cry­pto­cu­rrency wa­llets as­so­cia­ted with ap­pro­xi­ma­tely 800 vic­tims in the sche­me, for an es­ti­ma­ted loss of at least ap­pro­xi­ma­tely $516,695, ac­cor­ding to the af­fi­da­vit and news re­lea­se.

The U.S. Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia’s Scam Cen­ter Task Force, the FBI’s field of­fi­ce in Ho­no­lu­lu and the U.S. At­tor­ney’s Of­fi­ce for the Dis­trict of Alas­ka made a trip to Ma­da­gas­car in Au­gust to re­view elec­tro­nic de­vi­ces sei­zed from scam com­pounds. In­ter­views with scam com­pound wor­kers there re­vea­led that Cam­bo­dian po­li­ce ac­ti­vity and armed con­flict bet­ween Thai­land and Cam­bo­dia led to ope­ra­tions at a Cam­bo­dian scam com­pound being moved to Ma­da­gas­car…