Mutant Ape NFT Creator To Forgo $1.4 Million, Escapes Jail Time

In an interesting development, the creator of the fraud NFT collection “Mutant Ape Planet” Aurelien Michel is set to avoid a prison sentence following a recent court ruling. However, the defendant has been ordered to forgo over $1 million as punishment for conducting a rug pull.

In January 2023, the US Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York rolled out an indictment against Michel accusing the latter of defrauding unsuspecting investors of $2.9 million via the sale of the “Mutant Ape Planet” NFTs, modeled after the popular “Mutant Ape Yacht Club” collection. 

The French national had marketed these digital assets to several individuals in 2022 with promises of several rewards such as merchandise and metaverse land designed to boost the value of these NFTs upon acquisition. 

However, Michel reneged on these promises as he perpetrated a rug pull, diverting all raised funds from investors to personal expenses. In November 2023, the malicious NFT creator entered a guilty plea to the charges of wire fraud presented by the US prosecutors resulting in a potential prison sentence of five years. 

However, in a Bloomberg report on November 1, US Judge Margo Brodie handed a one-month sentence to Michel, which has been served following the defendant’s arrest in 2022. Furthermore, the Frenchman is expected to pay a $15,000 fine as well as forfeit $1.4 million of his wealth. 

Judge Brodie’s sentence is considerably light in comparison to the prosecutors’ request for a 37-month prison sentence. In his defense, Michel’s lawyers had argued he be spared from a jail term as all investors did receive a “digital artwork” in line with the definition of an NFT that is designed to confirm unique ownership of various digital art forms. 

The US Judge appeared to have aligned with the defending counsel as she said to Michel:

The loss amount is unclear. There’s no question you and your co-conspirators ultimately gained or at least received $2.9 million from the project. But there is also no dispute everyone who purchased an NFT obtained or received something of value. What that value is, is unclear.

According to Bloomberg, Michel’s case is one of the three US indictments of NFT fraud and the first to obtain a court ruling.

According to data from NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam, the total NFT sales in October climbed to $356.62 million representing a 17.47% gain on the values recorded from September. The reported sales volume of the last month was generated from 7,231,056 transactions involving 964,210 unique sellers and 616,546 unique buyers.