A year after the project was delisted from OpenSea due to some concerning allegations, a Federal Grand Jury is investigating Squiggles NFT founders for fraud and money laundering concerns. Twitter user @Tier10k first reported the investigation that was made official through a court filing.
Squiggels has been an NFT project under scrutiny for much of the last year. Following its delisting from OpenSea, a 57-page document was obtained by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC) to aid in an investigation.
Squiggles NFT Investigated for Fraud and Money Laundering
According to the document that was shared today, a Federal Grand Jury will indeed investigate the founders of Squiggles NFT. The court filing disclosed that the investigation is surrounding possible “violations of federal criminal law.” Moreover, the filing specifically stated Gavin Mayo, Gabriel Hay, and Ali Saghi, among those being accused.
Additionally, the filing stated that the governmental investigation is focusing on violations of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1343 and 1957. These two allege that the listed founders have executed fraudulent actions as well as potential money laundering practices.
Therafter, the filing states the listed founders, “are suspected of creating several Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) rug pull scams that have defrauded investors of millions of dollars in various cryptocurrencies.” Furthermore identifies the group as being “suspected in helping move and exchange cryptocurrencies to hide it from authorities.”
Conclusively, the filing notesthat the founding collective utilized “providers such as Meta Platforms, Inc., specifically Instagram, to promote and mint their NFT projects that ultimately turn out to be rug pull scams.” Ultimately, the allegations and investigations is centered around rug pull accusations first surfacing in February of 2022.