- A 25-year-old Moroccan man, has been accused of creating a fake OpenSea site and duping a user into giving away their digital wallet’s seed phrase and login details.
- Through this deceptive setup, he managed to steal nearly $450,000 worth of NFTs, including from the famed Bored Ape Yacht Club series.
- The US Department of Justice has charged Oulahyane with wire fraud, unauthorized use of an access device, manipulating transactions, and aggravated identity theft.
Soufiane Oulahyane, a 25-year-old Moroccan man, stands accused of spoofing OpenSea, a leading NFT trading platform, to deceitfully obtain digital art worth nearly half a million dollars. This stolen trove included an image from the much-coveted Bored Ape Yacht Club.
The world of NFTs is one where digital rights to images, although viewable by anyone online, are traded for considerable sums of money. Oulahyane, who also goes by “Soufiane Oulahya,” allegedly set up a phony portal in September 2021, which bore a striking resemblance to OpenSea. The fake site reportedly tricked a victim into sharing their seed phrase, essentially the password to their cryptocurrency wallet, along with their login credentials.
An Novel Approach to Digital Theft
The methods employed by Oulahyane reflect a cunning and meticulous approach to executing digital crime. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, he leveraged paid ads on a search engine to give his spoof version of OpenSea top visibility in the search results. The bogus site was convincingly designed to mimic the legitimate one, even featuring a login page that tricked victims into giving away their private credentials.
Upon the victims entering their details, they were directly relayed to an email account allegedly controlled by Oulahyane. The US authorities have unsealed charges against Oulahyane, who is currently detained in Morocco on separate charges. He may be facing a lengthy sentence in a U.S. prison if proven guilty.
US Attorney Damian Williams emphasized that “spoofing,” a familiar technique in the world of cybercrime, had been utilized here in a novel context: the burgeoning domain of cryptocurrency and NFTs.
The Grand Scale of the NFT Theft
This alleged ploy enabled Oulahyane to misappropriate around 40 high-profile NFTs, including digital rights to images from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Bored Ape Kennel Club, CryptoDad, and Meebit series. This totaled an estimated value close to $450,000.
The severity of the charges Oulahyane faces underlines the extent of his alleged crimes. He is charged with wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, unauthorized use of an access device, up to ten years, manipulating transactions with said device to receive something worth at least $1,000, up to 15 years, and aggravated identity theft, which imposes a mandatory consecutive sentence of two years.
If Oulahyane is extradited successfully, his case may serve as a crucial precedent in the sphere of digital asset theft. As Attorney Damian Williams stated, “digital assets, such as cryptocurrency and NFTs, are not immune from cyber fraudsters.”
