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Another NFT project promoted by Jake Paul has failed to deliver on its promises and rug pulled its community, this time to the tune of $6.3 million.
Animoon marketed itself as a play-to-earn game featuring 9,999 programmatically generated Animoon NFTs and went on to claim that it was, “The most awaited NFT project.”
Animoon claimed their Pokémon-derivative NFTs, each costing 0.2 ETH, were produced in partnership with official Pokémon partners TopDeck. The project even went on to assert that they had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with Pokémon themselves.
As is increasingly common for NFT cash-ins, Animoon called upon the services of a professional punching bag, and serial scammer Jake Paul to shill the project.
“I’m just grateful to be a part of this project,” said Paul in a promotional video message to his followers. “I love the designs inspired by Pokémon – the whole nine yards. Me, personally, I’m gonna try and get a Legendary [Animoon] during the public mint, but y’all better not miss this. Be ready for the mint.”
Having successfully lured investors into their trap with bold claims and celebrity endorsements, Animoon failed to deliver upon its many promises.
Real-world products including trainers and t-shirts were never delivered to investors. Cash rewards for the 15 ‘Legendary’ NFT holders have never been paid out.
Crypto sleuth ZachXBT was able to demonstrate, with the aid of the Breadcrumbs analytics tool, that the $6.3 million Animoon raised was transferred out to Binance and Kucoin.
Summing up the situation ZachXBT said: “At this point, the Twitter account for Animoon is gone, the website isn’t functional, and general chat has been removed from the Discord.”
Serial scammers unite
The founders of Animoon, named Mounir Mokaddem and Singainy Marc Oceane, appear to have a considerable resume of criminal enterprises to their names. Mokaddem has an entire website dedicated to listing his alleged criminal exploits. These include taking money for coaching and investment services that were never delivered upon.
Having accumulated a wealth of experience in not fulfilling promises across multiple sectors, the NFT industry was the next logical step for Mokaddem.
Meanwhile, Jake Paul is gathering an unenviable reputation in the crypto sphere as a celebrity shill for hire, promoting projects whether good or bad without prejudice. Paul has promoted multiple trash projects including Sacred Devils and STICKDIX netting him up to $2.2 million.
Jake’s brother Logan Paul is no stranger to crypto controversy either after the influencer promoted disaster-project CryptoZoo and Dink Doink. Like Jake, Logan continues to milk the crypto-cash cow, promoting further NFT schemes.
Crypto shilling is big business. A recent leak revealed that a single promotional tweet from someone such as Lindsay Lohan can cost $20,000. While celebrities rake in the cash from their promotion of crypto projects, ordinary investors are often far less lucky. Unfortunately, until dodgy founders and their celebrity shills are held to account, their behavior simply won’t change.
Sources claim that Animoon founders Mounir Mokaddem and Singainy Marc Oceane currently reside in Dubai. If you have information that might lead to their arrest, you can contact Dubai Police here.