The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has taken decisive action against NFT phishing scammer Chase Senecal, aka Horror (HZ), according to a forfeiture document dated February 4, 2023.
The FBI seized cryptocurrency assets and luxury goods worth a total of $260,000 from Senecal, who was known for his involvement in numerous attacks on several NFT projects, including Nouns DAO and JRNY Club.
The seized crypto assets consisted of two NFTs, Bored Ape 9658 and Doodle 3114, which were valued at $104,856 and $116,433 respectively.
The FBI also took possession of an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Watch valued at $41,000. The operation took place on October 24, 2022.
The FBI relied on the expertise of on-chain sleuth ZachXBT to track down Senecal. The scammer carried out his phishing attacks using a Twitter panel acquired from another scammer, Cameron Redman.
HZ and other scammers also targeted the Discord servers of various projects, such as Anata, Lacoste, BAYC Otherside, and 333 Club.
ZachXBT’s research led to the discovery of Senecal after he posted an iced-out Audemars Piguet Watch on Twitter. The research uncovered an address linked to the scammer and revealed that he paid $47,500 for the watch.
US federal agencies, including the FBI, have recently increased their scrutiny of the cryptocurrency space.
In January 2023, they made significant progress in their investigations into Sam Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto empire and Mango Markets’ hacker Avraham Eisenberg.
The chair of the CFTC, Rostin Behnam, has promised to bring more enforcement actions against non-compliant crypto projects, echoing the sentiments of the SEC, which has repeatedly called on crypto firms to register with it and is currently engaged in a lawsuit against Ripple.
Another crypto investigator, Coffezilla, has revealed that he paid MMA fighter Dillon Danis $1,000 to promote a fake NFT project.
Danis did not inform his followers that he was paid for the promotion, nor did he conduct any due diligence on the project.
Coffezilla stated that Danis “posted [a] copy that literally spells out S.C.A.M.” and added that “the entire project is fake.”
