UK makes first seizure of NFTs in tax crackdown ($ 1.9 million fraud)

[bitmover]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-makes-first-seizure-nfts-tax-crackdown-2022-02-14/

UK makes first seizure of NFTs in tax crackdown

British tax authorities said on Monday they had made their first seizure of non-fungible tokens in a crackdown on suspected criminal activity to hide money.

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs seized three NFTs after investigating an attempt to defraud the public coffers of 1.4 million pounds ($1.9 million).

Around 5,000 pounds worth of other crypto assets were also seized.

The probe also led to the arrest of three people for alleged value added tax repayment fraud involving 250 fake companies.

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.

We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT.

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[AmoreJaz]

wow, just look at the numbers here. 3 people, 250 fake companies? fraudsters are really doing great job. but to their unlucky strike, they were caught red-handed. the article didn't elaborate how HMRC found this money laundering scheme.
but it's true, this NFT market could really be one route to hide money, you can sell and buy your own NFT without anybody's knowledge, if you know how to cover your tracks, if your aim is to really "wash" your dirty money.
this will be another blow to the NFT market, as media usually highlight the bad publicity. but am still with NFT as many struggling artists and personalities can utilise this platform to showcase what they've got under their sleeves.

[Jemzx00]

People will always find a way to launder their money and avoid their tax. I guess it's about time they also used NFT as a way to do so . I kinda expect it already as they already used bitcoin and other crypto to do so. The NFT Market right now is too big and mainstream which might also the reason why these people used it. But just as the report said "We constantly adapt to new technology to ensure we keep pace with how criminals and evaders look to conceal their assets,". Authorities will also find a ways to expose these people and avoid these from happening.

[stompix]

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.

NFT are actually far better at money laundering than any crypto, I remember these ones, the fake 69 billion auction  and then the other half billion!! one
With BTC at least the old story I've mined in 2009 some coins and I just got them back is not really following anyone anymore (like in the bitfinex case just a few days ago), but with NFT,  create some jpgs, have your buddies buy them for thousands and hundreds of thousands and suddenly the revenue is legit, at least on the surface.

But when I read 250 fake companies and 1.9 million in tax evasion, that must be the tip of a really huge iceberg, just $8000 per company I don't think so, once they start digging I'm sure the numbers will go up by at least one order of magnitude if not more.

[jackg]

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.

It makes NFTs seem even more like art now .

It's probably harder to track laundering with assets that have fluctuating value too like art pieces so it can go quite well hidden.

I wonder what'll happen to the nft now though, i imagine it'd be hard to auction.

[Fortify]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-makes-first-seizure-nfts-tax-crackdown-2022-02-14/

UK makes first seizure of NFTs in tax crackdown

British tax authorities said on Monday they had made their first seizure of non-fungible tokens in a crackdown on suspected criminal activity to hide money.

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs seized three NFTs after investigating an attempt to defraud the public coffers of 1.4 million pounds ($1.9 million).

Around 5,000 pounds worth of other crypto assets were also seized.

The probe also led to the arrest of three people for alleged value added tax repayment fraud involving 250 fake companies.

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.

We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT.

I hope they sell this NFT off quick, as you never know how long the "value" will last and it's not government or police business to be in the NFT market. It sounds like whatever the NFT was is a relatively low value asset among many, a small success against fraud in the ocean that exists right now. Ironically they're probably only investing it and getting a prosecution because it is the "taxman" being defrauded in this case - they'll throw everything at the investigation if they figure that out and 250 companies is bound to set off alarm bells, but I bet we only see the tip of the iceberg with the amount of money they really got to spend. If only they investigated every fraud case which such precision.

[avikz]

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.

We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT.

Is it surprising? I don't think so! NFT market was specifically built to launder money otherwise how can an image is sold for millions? Is it a joke?

NFT market has made money laundering more streamlined. Where in front you can show that you have purchased an NFT, and in the background, that reason can be anything else. Be it the money for drug purchase or arms purchase. An intelligent execution of NFT, can hide the trail of dirty money and come out clean on the other side!

[hatshepsut93]

If money laundering is a major use case and governments will start catching up with it, NFT will become obsolete. Real art sales can be made to look believable, because art does have value, especially if its creator is famous, but NFTs are just unoriginal digital pictures, so it should be suspicious when they are sold for millions. And attracting suspicion is the first step to failing in money laundering.

[Flexystar]

That’s really hot seizure. I knew it, that NFT are making their way through art world at alarming rate however there is also another side of NFT where investors or rich people will find their ways to evade the taxes. Even artwork is used to evade the taxes since ages now and the journey now started to go on with the help of NFT.

I’m pretty sure there is big amount of money laundering already happening in the world. The only which one came up front is the one got robbed.

[fiulpro]

The fact is people will use anything to invade tax and for illegal purposes as well, seizure of the NFT's does not really mean that they are going to make things better, its already spreading like a virus on everywhere, Instagram, Facebook all the places, they are messaging people personally and gaining private information from other third party sources making it even more of a joke. NFT's were supposed to be an innovation helping artists and other people to kind of patent on these things then again everything does have a downside which we cannot help. Government should make stricter rules about NFT's and make things more legal, then again they might start requiring KYC now if these things keeps increasing.

[Hamphser]

The fact is people will use anything to invade tax and for illegal purposes as well, seizure of the NFT's does not really mean that they are going to make things better, its already spreading like a virus on everywhere, Instagram, Facebook all the places, they are messaging people personally and gaining private information from other third party sources making it even more of a joke. NFT's were supposed to be an innovation helping artists and other people to kind of patent on these things then again everything does have a downside which we cannot help. Government should make stricter rules about NFT's and make things more legal, then again they might start requiring KYC now if these things keeps increasing.

Not that really surprised because everything that does have value would be always be having the tendency on being used on money laundering or tax evasion or something like that.

There would be no exemptions and its none of a surprise that NFT industry would really be used on this way.Of course government would make out significant step on getting
rid of it which i wont be surprised with such actions later on.

[mobilestrike]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-makes-first-seizure-nfts-tax-crackdown-2022-02-14/

UK makes first seizure of NFTs in tax crackdown

British tax authorities said on Monday they had made their first seizure of non-fungible tokens in a crackdown on suspected criminal activity to hide money.

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs seized three NFTs after investigating an attempt to defraud the public coffers of 1.4 million pounds ($1.9 million).

Around 5,000 pounds worth of other crypto assets were also seized.

The probe also led to the arrest of three people for alleged value added tax repayment fraud involving 250 fake companies.

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.

We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT.

NFT legal use is to secure the right of the creators and the owners for their arts and other digital products the create. But some people are taking wrong benefits of that which they have to stop as with this they are making this field difficult for the artists and other creators.

The attempt of UK government to seize the funds of those who did fraud with the tax authority is good. I want that no one do any money laundering or any fraud using crypto technologies.

[crwth]

That is a lot of work. Escaping something like tax wouldn’t be so easy and you would still get caught. I’m just worried what effect It could give to the cryptocurrency economy, like how the people of the UK would see NFTs now and how it's being used.

[paxmao]

That is a lot of work. Escaping something like tax wouldn’t be so easy and you would still get caught. I’m just worried what effect It could give to the cryptocurrency economy, like how the people of the UK would see NFTs now and how it's being used.

It is a good scheme to be honest, that is, as good as it gets when it comes to scamming others and evading tax. Perhaps the use of NTFs makes it a bit more interesting but on the end is just the same as many football clubs do with the ticket sales, construction companies do with the "B" accounting and many other companies do in most of the tax heavens out there.

[odolvlobo]

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.
We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT.

If they were caught under the current laws and regulations, what is the need for more?

[cabron]

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.
We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT.

If they were caught under the current laws and regulations, what is the need for more?

That too. Art couldn't be taxed. Probably not this time.

Reuters didn't show evidence as to who these people are, who and why they are hiding thier wealth thru NFTS. They were saying there are 3 people with 250 companies, who are they?  Looks like this is just bits of the data. But then anyway, it's been said many times already that NFTS is used for such purposes. I find it hard to see when these assets are hard to liquidate.

[evilgreed]

               It's not surprising though. Something like this was already bound to happen the moment NFTs became a hit just like what halpened to crypto currencies. People will always exploit as much as they can on just about anything as long as it guves them benefits. It's just sad that because of these fckers we gon have a hard time again with all the regulators since they have yet another reason to mess with the crypto enthusiasts in the guise of upholding the law. :/

[el kaka22]

It was always known that NFT was used for money laundering, that is not a new thing. You create some sort of NFT collection, then some people with not so clean money end up buying that from you, and you are not responsible for where they got that money. All you have to do is say that you have NFT collection that you sold and that is how you made your money. This way you could launder countless amount of money and unfortunately there are tons of people who do it and destroy the NFT reputation along the legal lines.

Tax evasion is another one, and pumping your own prices is another (by buying from yourself) so it is not really a great deal if you ask me, it should never be used for bad stuff and crypto should be a gateway from governments in a way but not for tax purposes, it should be for keeping the value of your investment purposes because fiat loses value whereas crypto doesn't, not for tax evasion.

[Webetcoins]

NFT world is turning into a weird one, and I am not sure if I am really aware which one is real and which one is not. I keep seeing people who mint stuff for a few hundred dollars at max and usually even cheaper, then sell it for thousands of dollars, even tens of thousands of dollars. Doesn't mean that I think all of them are fraud, but at certain point the fraud ones and the real ones got mixed in my head.

I feel like if you are investing into NFT at this point, it would be very hard to know if you are investing into something that is fake or real. Scams were always out there, scam is not a new idea, every time a new thing happened in crypto, scam versions of it happened as well.

The problem is that I never really heard about people buying their own tokens to make it look like it is expensive or people laundering money via their own tokens, or people stealing tokens from other projects and make it look like it is their token, these were either not happening or not possible. With NFT world, all of them are possible.

[teosanru]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-makes-first-seizure-nfts-tax-crackdown-2022-02-14/

UK makes first seizure of NFTs in tax crackdown

British tax authorities said on Monday they had made their first seizure of non-fungible tokens in a crackdown on suspected criminal activity to hide money.

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs seized three NFTs after investigating an attempt to defraud the public coffers of 1.4 million pounds ($1.9 million).

Around 5,000 pounds worth of other crypto assets were also seized.

The probe also led to the arrest of three people for alleged value added tax repayment fraud involving 250 fake companies.

Now we can see people using NFT for tax evasion and money laundry.

We are about to see a lot of new laws and regulations related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency and NFT.

NFTs definitely are the easiest way to launder your money out. Infact the useless artifacts getting such high valuations was only because the funds were being compromised here and there by changing hands multiple times. And obviously if these things go on soon you are going to see government cracking down on NFTs too all around the world, values of Cryptocurrencies can still be justified due to it's liquidity but you can never justify an NFTs value because of it's illiquid nature and this is why it's used so much by the money launderers.

[dothebeats]

NFTs before it became the hype of the year is good. Some awesome projects and creations were out and about, until it was plagued by nefarious people trying to use it to launder money and do illicit things. Some fresh ideas came out when NFTs were new, but it became stale after a while since people are trying to sell almost anything. The space isn't developing and money launderers have been flocking the market like ants finding food, and I think it's justified if regulations are to be put in place to protect people for their money.

[mobilestrike]

That is a lot of work. Escaping something like tax wouldn’t be so easy and you would still get caught. I’m just worried what effect It could give to the cryptocurrency economy, like how the people of the UK would see NFTs now and how it's being used.

That really put bad effects on NFTs because if NFTs will remain in safe hands then everyone will like it and artists will get their real profits while if people start to use it for escaping from tax then people will think of it as a source of money laundering and will think that these are those involved in it who escape from paying taxes.
People ahve to be positive as many people use many sources to evade taxes so it is not only NFTs which they started to use for the first time.

[crwth]

That really put bad effects on NFTs because if NFTs will remain in safe hands then everyone will like it and artists will get their real profits while if people start to use it for escaping from tax then people will think of it as a source of money laundering and will think that these are those involved in it who escape from paying taxes.

Those are just questionable things that people do that it can be for money laundering or it could just be a prank ^{a pretty expensive prank} just to be part of the hype or something. It's just interesting to consider that there are actual people buying into it or something. Maybe they just have a lot of money.

People ahve to be positive as many people use many sources to evade taxes so it is not only NFTs which they started to use for the first time.

A lot of stuff has been invented to evade it and they are just adapting to the new technology, I guess.

[dunfida]

That is a lot of work. Escaping something like tax wouldn’t be so easy and you would still get caught. I’m just worried what effect It could give to the cryptocurrency economy, like how the people of the UK would see NFTs now and how it's being used.

That really put bad effects on NFTs because if NFTs will remain in safe hands then everyone will like it and artists will get their real profits while if people start to use it for escaping from tax then people will think of it as a source of money laundering and will think that these are those involved in it who escape from paying taxes.
People ahve to be positive as many people use many sources to evade taxes so it is not only NFTs which they started to use for the first time.

Still got surprised with this scenario?Anything which can be possibly used as long people could able to do so including NFT's or any other,there would be no exemption.
Lets just accept that reality or fact because this is always been a normal thing where there are opportunist that would be taking advantage on the current trend
that we are in.Crackdowns on these illegal doing would be a never ending chase.

[bitmover]

Melania Trump accused of placing winning $185,000 bid in first sale on her new NFT platform
Transactions on the Solana blockchain found links between her to the winning bid of 1,800 SOL

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/melania-trump-nft-auction-winner-b2017060.html

So it is happening already. She bought her own NFT.

Is this how people will laundry money now? I can just put my NFT to sell, and buy it for thousands or even millions (in some other account that I own).