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UK seizes NFT in suspected VAT fraud probe, World News

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UK tax author­i­ties have seized Non-Fun­gi­ble Tokens (NFT) amid a probe involv­ing sus­pect­ed VAT fraud involv­ing 250 alleged fake companies.

The peo­ple behind the crime were alleged­ly attempt­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in attempt­ed fraud as UK author­i­ties began the probe. The crim­i­nals had report­ed­ly hid their real iden­ti­ty and made false iden­ti­ties, UK’s rev­enue and cus­toms offi­cials said.

Also Read: NFT plat­form that sold Dorsey’s first tweet shuts down due to ‘ram­pant’ fakes

The peo­ple involved in the crime report­ed­ly also used pre-paid unreg­is­tered mobile phones, VPNs and false invoic­es to defraud people.

Last week, the US Jus­tice Depart­ment had recov­ered 94,000 bit­coin stolen six years ago val­ued at $3.6 bil­lion. A cou­ple were report­ed to be involved in the scam. They were arrest­ed and charged while fac­ing near­ly 20 years in prison.

The cou­ple used the funds to buy gold and dig­i­tal NFTs, US offi­cials said.

Also Read: After cryp­tocur­ren­cies, mon­ey laun­der­ing via NFTs is next big worry

NFTs are dig­i­tal items that can be bought and sold using blockchain tech­nol­o­gy on spe­cialised plat­forms. Last year, cryp­to data site Dapp had report­ed that land worth over $100 mil­lion was sold in meta­verse sites, Decen­tra­land, The Sand­box, Cryp­toVox­els and Som­ni­um Space.

Decen­tra­land puts every­thing from land to vir­tu­al art­work in the form of NFTs as peo­ple have sent thou­sands of dol­lars to acquire dig­i­tal items. 

The val­ue of Bit­coins soared to record lev­els last year val­ued at $68,513 in Novem­ber 2021. How­ev­er, it also wit­nessed rapid fluctuations.

(With inputs from Agencies)



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