A 71-year-old digital artist from India fell victim to scammers posing as NFT art dealers.
According to local reports, Shivaprasad R (name changed), a practicing Chartered Accountant (CA), lost INR 1.58 lakhs (about $1895) in fees to scammers who promised to buy his art.
Shivaprasad is a professional artist whose work has been featured in several local exhibitions and posted on Instagram and Facebook. In October 2023, scammers introduced artists to a platform called nfttradeplace.com, claiming to be ‘NFT art dealers’.
The scammer told the victim that he wanted to buy his painting for 42 ETH, or INR 1.09 billion, a significant sum in India. All negotiations were conducted virtually through email and Facebook.
The digital artist accepted the offer and listed three of his works for 10 ETH and another for 12 ETH. On February 1, 2024, the victim was asked to pay 0.115 ETH as a “gas fee” to the scammer’s platform.
A cybercrime investigator said, “The victim made the payment using a cryptocurrency wallet set up according to the fraudster’s instructions.”
After the first sale was completed, the artist requested a withdrawal of 6 ETH from his earnings. However, even after waiting several days, the transaction did not start. Upon double-checking, Shivaprasad was asked to pay a “late fee” for supposedly holding up his cryptocurrency withdrawal.
“This delay fee was never discussed or disclosed on the website,” the victim said in a statement.
He added that since he does not hold ETH, he asked the scammers to accept the delay fee in fiat currency. The fraudsters agreed to this request and the victim went on to make four payments into the accounts of Mohammed Ekramul Haque and Mohammad Farooq. It has not been confirmed whether these people are behind this scam.
Shivaprasad made his last payment to the scammer on March 15. He noted that the platform “kept asking (him) for additional payments” so he could withdraw his 6 ETH.
At this time, the victim realized that the NFT customer had deceived him. The victim contacted the cyber police station on April 17 and filed a complaint under Articles 66C (punishment for identity theft), 66D (punishment for impersonation fraud using computer resources), and 420 (fraud and fraudulent inducement to deliver) of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Accepted. property of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)).
“It is very difficult to trace a cryptocurrency trail. As of now, we are looking into the banking details and domain details of the email addresses used by the fraudsters,” said a person familiar with the matter.
India has seen a significant increase in cryptocurrency fraud despite a crackdown by local authorities. Last week, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched an investigation into an $800 million Ponzi scheme involving Bollywood celebrities.
Before that, recruitment scams were discovered across the country where scammers used spyware disguised as applications essential to the onboarding process to drain victims’ cryptocurrency wallets.