A new celebrity memecoin created by suspected serial fraudster Sahil Arora has raised more than $300,000 in a pre-sale of tokens named after Australian musician Iggy Azalea.
A post on Azalea’s
“Basically I was interested in creating a legal coin with utility, but Sahil gave it a try, but I thought you wouldn’t see his weird pre-sale telegram,” Azalea’s account said in a now-deleted post from X.
The Australian rapper reportedly quit Twitter last year to avoid “bad vibes”. She also announced de-platforming in 2015.
Azalea’s brand joins the growing list of celebrities entering the world of memecoins through some form of association with Arora.
American rapper ‘Rich the Kid’ (Dimitri Leslie Roger) publicly accused Arora of hacking his X account to promote the recently launched ‘RICH’ token.
Meanwhile, Olympic medalist Caitlyn Jenner claimed that Arora deceived her during the launch of her token. The token launch has seen a market capitalization of over $40 million since its launch on May 27, according to data from Dexscreener.
Related: Fraudulent Cryptocurrency Projects Using Stolen Funds for Liquidity Gone.
Jenner’s token lost about 50% of its peak market capitalization as of 9:30 AM UTC on May 28.
This week, Arora’s alleged illegal activities have been in the spotlight due to his involvement in the celebrity memecoin project. He was accused of several frauds, including a rug-pulling scheme based on the Avalanche, for which he allegedly received small theft fees.
The Telegram channel details a recent token launch campaign in which participants accused Arora of carrying out a rug pull, a common exit scam in the Memecoin scene.
An investor in the project, who spoke to Cointelegraph on condition of anonymity, said liquidity was removed within five minutes of the coin’s launch.
“If I remember vividly, I don’t think he got more than 6 or 8 AVAX with $RICH,” the investor said.
Arora has also been accused of being the mastermind behind the rug-pulling allegations involving former National Basketball Association (NBA) star Dwight Howard.
But Arora denied that his campaign against Avalanche was a scam, saying people “got burned because they didn’t time their entry right.”
“So many people benefited greatly from my launch,” Arora told Cointelegraph. “The few who are not haters.”
According to a 2017 article in the Times of India, Arora dropped out of Pathways School, an international school, to launch a taxi application.
Related: Caitlyn Jenner Claims She Was ‘Scammed’ By Joining Rich the Kid
He has since founded numerous businesses, including payments project ZelaaPayAE and influencer platform Habibi.
A former contractor at ZelaaPayAE, who spoke to Cointelegraph on condition of anonymity, said he was added to the website despite only processing one order from Arora.
The contractor claims Arora did not pay the 800 British pounds he was owed until he was threatened to report him to the authorities.
Also in 2017, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Indian payments giant PayTM, publicly accused Arora of identity theft.
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