Brooklyn’s District Attorney has shut down 40 fraudulent NFT marketplace websites after an 85-year-old artist was swindled out of $135,000 in a sophisticated scam. The artist was lured via LinkedIn by a scammer posing as an art dealer, who convinced him to mint his artwork on a fake NFT platform mimicking OpenSea.

Believing he had made $300,000 in profits, the victim was asked to pay a $135,000 fee to access the funds. To meet the demand, he drained his retirement account, used credit cards, and took out a loan. When the promised payment never materialized, he was left “emotionally and financially devastated,” according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

The DA’s investigation uncovered a network of scam websites targeting artists with similar fraudulent schemes. Two other victims from Georgia and California fell prey to the same tactics. The scammers’ operations were traced to a cryptocurrency exchange in Nigeria, where funds were converted into local currency, making recovery impossible. Many of the fraudulent sites also asked users to enter their crypto wallet seed phrases, enabling the scammers to drain victims' wallets entirely.

District Attorney Eric Gonzalez emphasized the importance of vigilance in the NFT space, urging artists to stick to trusted marketplaces, verify contacts, and never share their crypto wallet seed phrases. “If it seems too good to be true, it likely is,” Gonzalez warned, encouraging artists to seek advice from peers and conduct thorough research.

This crackdown underscores the growing risks in the NFT market and serves as a stark reminder to remain cautious in the rapidly evolving digital art landscape.