MoonPay’s top executives may have been defrauded in a $250,000 Trump-themed crypto scam. None of the involved parties confirmed this story, but the DOJ is officially pursuing the scammer.
Whoever this Nigerian scammer was targeting, he posed as Steve Witkoff to solicit donations for President Trump’s Inauguration. Several pieces of circumstantial evidence fit together to put MoonPay in the middle.
Did a Fake Trump Scam Defraud MoonPay?
Crypto scams are running rampant right now, with new victims losing money every day. However, a DOJ court complaint may have unintentionally revealed an important one.
Apparently, a Nigerian scammer managed to defraud two anonymous users out of $250,000 with a fake Trump connection, and some of MoonPay’s top executives might’ve been the targets.
MoonPay is a popular centralized exchange that has recently been noteworthy for its charitable acts and coveted MiCA license.
However, a recent report found credible evidence connecting MoonPay’s CEO and CFO to this alleged Trump scam. Essentially, the DOJ’s complaint gives several important clues that fit together convincingly.
The DOJ refers to two anonymous victims, “Ivan” and “Mouna.” First of all, MoonPay’s CEO is Ivan Soto-Wright, and Mouna Ammari Siala is its CFO.
Furthermore, this DOJ complaint included the scammer’s wallet address, and public blockchain data connects it to one of Soto-Wright’s own wallets. Already, we have pertinent circumstantial evidence.
Additionally, MoonPay has enjoyed major recent partnerships with President Trump, acting as his meme coin’s official on-ramp. TRUMP launched on the same week as Inauguration Day, and this event was an important component of the alleged scam.
At the time, the firm made several posts celebrating the token’s release:
7 days ago, $TRUMP took the crypto world by storm
MoonPay was picked as the token’s official onramp, through our partners at @moonshot
750,000 new people created a MoonPay account
BIG WEEK! pic.twitter.com/4FiC1Xt4ti
— MoonPay
750,000 new people created a MoonPay account
we saw a 1,023% increase in first-time onchain transactions
(@moonpay) So, how does this all fit together? The DOJ included a December 2024 screenshot from the Nigerian scammer’s email, including the address “[email protected]”.
The first letter in “inaugural” was a lowercase “L”, spoofing a legitimate organization to pose as Steve Witkoff.
Based on these fraudulent pretenses, the scammer solicited donations for Trump’s Inauguration. Many crypto firms donated to President Trump’s Inauguration, but MoonPay was apparently not one of them.
In other words, a clear picture is presenting itself. MoonPay partnered with the President to help launch TRUMP, and a scammer allegedly posed as his representative less than a month beforehand.
If the victim “Ivan” really is MoonPay’s CEO, as evidenced by the blockchain data, then it seems like the company attempted to donate $250,000.
The DOJ’s investigation has already attracted some criticism. $250,000 is a lot of money for one person, but several larger operations targeted US retail investors in the last month alone. Some experts allege that the DOJ is prioritizing a case involving a Trump ally.
“If you’re friendly with Trump, you get the DOJ proactively trying to recover your assets, even when there are not too many zeroes on the rounding sheet. But, if you’re an average consumer, and you lose your life savings…no one’s going to help you. That doesn’t seem like justice,” Mark Hays, a crypto regulation advocate, claimed in an interview.
Whether these DOJ favoritism claims are true or not, the core picture remains. It seems highly plausible that MoonPay’s top executives fell victim to a fake Trump scam.
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