Fake teams 419s: Verlux, IDOwall, Rocketpad

[Doc_P]

A number of token-selling projects has popped up last month, with high visibility on PR channels, “news sites”, and feeds, which have been shown to have fake teams.

These include (but are not limited to):

1. Verlux
   Claims to build a cross-chain NFT marketplace, no code, website only. All team members are fake, with such a pearl among them:
   Manipulated image shown

2. IDOwall
   Fake team could not even afford stock photos, so they made two out of one:
   

The fake bios are sometimes hilarious, with a “Jenny M’caine” who says to have been a “speaker” at a “Northeast conference”. Obviously the person who wrote this has no idea of the US-specific meaning.

3. Rocketpad
   I reached out to some former employers of their CTO, which is the least suspicious. None of the others is existing as such.

Generally, these make heavy use of PR sites, generate “news” on how much is sold of their seed and pre-sales, and at some point give a “first glance at upcoming UI” as video or graphic. No code is shown, no questions answered, and if asked why there are fake people on their teams, they block you.

The chain began with Ravendex (with an anonymous team), where the Nigerian community manager “Alex Grayson” is the only known person. Grayson did also the Verlux telegram group (first denying this), and called the fictional CEO “Glen Grayson”.

Basically, these are 419s in a modern incarnation: Pay us, pay us more, you’ll get a fortune soon.

These fishy cardano projects have evolved over time, and it’s possible that there are more of these.

[Errett_Goff]

Here is the photo i first saw on their old Medium account. Check out that hair lol.

[Doc_P]

These are also in their very first “whitepaper” version, can be found on web.archive.org, from end of Oct 2021.

Generated on https://generated.photos for about USD9 each. The bios aren’t worth a penny.

The newest sting is an own wallet app. Victims can send their ADA directly to the fake team to take care of it.

Ps.
Rocketpad update: none of the former employers of “Kanna Aiko” had confirmed so far, that this person is real and/or worked at the companies named on linkedin. The gang went to some depth to make these profiles up.

[George]

Lol, I knew that scammers are lazy by definition (since they’d prefer to scam than actually work) by this level of laziness is hillarious. Thanks for bringing awareness Robert!

I envision a future that we can verify all of the project’s team members (and associated pictures) on the blockchain. This wills put most scammers in place

[Doc_P]

That would be needed when they disappear with the ADA, at the moment please beware. If you really have those, there is little doubt where you got them because there is only one common point where they interacted… to my knowledge. Thus, you would endanger your business, at least. Don’t doxx yet.

From their activity, they are in a timezone somewhere between Pakistan and Senegal.

Now also Rocketpad will post a “wallet” where victims can send funds. As IDOwall did before. Was not expected, they came up with a new “innovation”.

BR

[Vutosh]

How to cancel a transaction in Yoroi? Yesterday I ran into Rocketpad and transferred 300 ada, my entire pension. Instead, rocket tokens came, but nothing can be done with them. How to return ada?

Here is the transaction:

ae0c5adbf7f05ddbd93b875d2108b2dfad1d74da5286f9e11f4101014ed07325

[Doc_P]

It’s heartbreaking but nothing can be done about it. The same as if you put it into some thief’s hand on the street.

These are the same criminals as the plutuswap scammers.

[Senpai]

Verlux team strikes again!

Hi all, my first post but no proper introduction yet (read below).

I want to inform you about something I discovered today. As I’m working on some tokens currently, I’m visiting cardano token registry quite often lately, also to check what people build nowadays. Today I’ve noticed this PR Sportano token addition by Lotaxgizmo · Pull Request #1592 · cardano-foundation/cardano-token-registry · GitHub (adasportano) so I started browsing and I found out that the same github user created this PR Verlux token submission by Lotaxgizmo · Pull Request #659 · cardano-foundation/cardano-token-registry · GitHub (verlux). Yeah, mistakes happen

I’m just letting you know, you can all do your own research, cc: @Zyroxa @HeptaSean
(mentioned you guys because I see that you’re providing great support in report a scam category.

Edited: probably worth to mention when someone does not want to look into pull request details, their new website is adasportano[dot]com

Background: As I said this is no real introduction so just some basic info: small team (me & 2 other guys), busy working at the moment on backend for projects that we want to release next few months. More info next week. Hint Happy Birthday Emperor Naruhito 今上天皇徳お誕生日おめでとう

Best,
Jared

[daryl00]

Thank you for this! I was a couple minutes away from sending $250 to the Verlux public sale. I copied the twitter link of the pictures asking what was going on in their telegram and was instantly blocked.

[daryl00]

is there a way to verify faces are coming from this generated site for future reference?

[Doc_P]

I was able to generate the same faces as they used in the IDOwall scam site, that’s why I know.

But these specific scammers have employed a number of different methods:

Stolen pictures at plutuswap (which the audience identified via reverse search), stolen and generated mixed at verlux (also identified by public), generated at IDOwall, stolen and distorted at Rocketpad and Coollaunch.

So I guess they’ll find ways to adapt their methods anyway.

[Doc_P]

Re: adapt btw.

Idowall now deleted their fake team. Would not surprise if others follow

[Doc_P]

IDOwall has closed their telegram with a notice “we’ll be back stronger” and that they’re up to “negotiate with the cardano world”(sic) about the negative comments they receive.

No development but the funds have vanished:
6-figures ADA embezzled from victims.

Translate this as a rugpull.