A 71-year-old digital artist in India fell victim to scammers pretending to be an NFT art dealer.
A local news article states that Shivaprasad R, a certified chartered accountant, was defrauded out of INR 1,58,000 (around $1,895) by individuals who deceitfully promised to purchase his artwork.
Shivaprasad is a skilled artist whose artwork has been displayed in numerous local galleries and showcased on Instagram and Facebook. In October 2023, individuals posing as NFT art dealers introduced the artist to a supposed platform called nfttradeplace.com.
A scam artist deceived a person into believing they wanted to buy their artwork for the equivalent of 42 Etherium or approximately 1.09 crores in Indian rupees. All interactions took place online, through emails and Facebook messages.
The digital artist accepted the proposal and put three of his pieces up for sale at 10 ETH each, and one for 12 ETH. On February 1, 2024, the scammer requested that the victim pay 0.115 ETH as a “transaction fee” into their platform.
The cybercrime investigator reported that the victim transferred funds from his own crypto wallet, which had been requested and facilitated by the scammer.
After finishing his first sale, the artist asked for the transfer of 6 ETH from his earnings. But even after waiting for several days, no transaction took place. Upon inquiring once more, Shivaprasad was told he would have to pay a “late fee” for allegedly causing a delay in processing his cryptocurrency withdrawal.
The victim stated that no discussion took place regarding this additional charge, and it was nowhere to be found on the website.
Mohammed Ekramul Haque and Mohammad Farooq were the recipients of four payments made by the victim, after he asked the scammers to accept delay fees in regular currency instead of Ethereum since he didn’t have any ETH. It is yet unknown if these individuals orchestrated the scam.
On March 15, Shivaprasad completed the final transaction, sending the required funds to the deceitful individuals. Surprised, he recorded in his notes that the site persistently requested additional payments from him, insisting he pay more to successfully withdraw his 6 ETH.
On April 17, the victim discovered that he had been deceitfully dealt with by his NFT clients. In shock, he reached out to the cyber authorities and reported the incident, filing complaints under sections 66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating through personation using computer resources), and 420 (fraudulent dealings) of the IT Act and the IPC respectively.
“Tracing cryptocurrency transactions is extremely challenging,” an officer involved in the case explained. “At present, we’ve requested both the associated bank information and domain details from the email address used by the scammers.”
In recent times, there has been a noticeable surge in cryptocurrency frauds in India, even as regulatory actions have been taken by the local law enforcement. Not long ago, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) initiated an inquiry into a $800 million Ponzi scheme linked to a popular Bollywood figure.
Before that incident, there was a report of a cryptocurrency job scam in the country. Crooks tricked people into downloading spyware under the guise of necessary applications for the hiring process. Once installed, they drained victims’ crypto wallets.
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2024-04-22 15:06