LOS ANGELES — Six people have been indicted in four separate cryptocurrency fraud cases involving more than $130 million in losses, including the single largest NFT scheme charged to date, federal prosecutors said this week.
That scheme, prosecutors said, involved a group called the Baller Ape Club that claimed to sell NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, in the form of cartoon images of apes.
A group with a similar theme, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, is one of the world's most popular NFT distributors, with endorsements from Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady and other celebrities. Its NFTs have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, though prices have dropped sharply in recent weeks.
