Tag: scammer
Bannon-Linked GoFundMe Scammer Sentenced to 4-1/2 Years for Trump Border Wall Scheme
A U.S. Air Force veteran was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on Wednesday for carrying out a fraudulent GoFundMe scheme claiming he was raising money to fund former President Donald Trump’s border wall. Brian Kolfage, who previously worked as an associate to Trump’s former advisor and White House…
Crypto scammer faces 18 months in prison over $22 million SIM attack
A young man is facing time behind bars for his role in a high-profile crypto scam. Bloombergreports a federal judge has sentenced 25-year-old Nicholas Truglia to 18 months in prison for allegedly taking part in a scheme that stole $22 million in cryptocurrency from blockchain adviser Michael Terpin in 2018. The perpetrators are said to have asked Truglia to convert Triggers tokens stolen from Terpin into Bitcoin after breaching the consultant’s phone.
Truglia has been described as a member of a larger criminal group that relied heavily on SIM swapping, or transferring victim phone numbers to SIM cards under attackers’ control, to rob crypto industry personalities. Terpin accused a New York State teen of leading the group following a private investigation and successfully recouped some of his losses. The teen pointed to Truglia and two other people as accomplices.
Truglia is the only person in the group subject to criminal charges, and is already facing civil penalties near $80 million for his alleged involvement. The relatively light sentence appears to have been influenced by Truglia’s autism, which defense attorney Jeffrey Udell claimed made it harder to understand the real-world consequences of the theft.
This is far from the largest crypto heist in recent memory. State-backed hackers and online gangs have been linked to thefts worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the blockchain. The length of the sentence is unlikely to deter others, for that matter. However, the sentencing theoretically sends a message that aiding crypto thieves is still a serious crime.
Why did YouTube spotlight a scammer and an accused abuser at its latest event?
In its effort to remain family-friendly and woo advertisers, YouTube has often struggled to please its vast, diverse community of creators. It seems that the brand’s first-ever “Made on YouTube” event, held this morning, was an attempt to strengthen that relationship by showing creators how much YouTube cares about their work and revenue streams. Unfortunately, the event proved that they still have a ways to go.
The event opened with a montage of popular creators making their first YouTube videos, reaching subscriber milestones, and saying nice things about all the opportunities YouTube has given them.
It featured all the usual suspects — squeaky-clean YouTube corporate favorites Mark Rober, Marques Brownlee, Simone Giertz, and Binging with Babish, artists Dua Lipa, Lizzo, and Conan Grey, the platform’s highest-earning creator MrBeast, and streamers TommyInnit, Dream, and Valkyrae. But two very surprising faces were also included: the ACE Family’s Austin McBroom and comedian Gus Johnson.
It’s hard to explain just how incredibly odd and wildly out of touch these choices are, because they both represent parts of the platform YouTube would rather pretend didn’t exist.
Credit: YouTube / The ACE Family
Credit: YouTube/ Gus Johnson
The ACE Family is notorious for a series of failed business ventures and scammy sales practices, and they’ve been loudly called out by the YouTube community since at least 2018. They’re so well-known on the platform that anyone who has paid even a skosh of attention to YouTube in the past few years would be aware of their poor reputation.
But, let’s say you aren’t on YouTube a whole lot. Simply Googling “the ACE family” brings up featured snippets with the questions like “what is the ACE Family controversy?” and “how much debt is the ACE Family in?” Just below that is a report from Insider on the family’s shady business dealings.
Credit: Google
Gus Johnson, meanwhile, was a popular creator until late last year when his ex-girlfriend Abelina Rios accused him of emotional abuse and neglect as she struggled with an ectopic pregnancy that almost killed her. Rios had been part of content on Johnson’s channel between 2018 and 2020, and their videos together are still up on the channel. As Newsweek recapped, Johnson made an apology for his behavior, which Rios did not accept.
Johnson’s channel has since taken a significant hit in subscriber count and viewership after Rio’s went public with her side of the story. He’s lost more than 350,000 subscribers since Rio’s video was published. That makes it even weirder that YouTube highlighted him in a celebratory medley of creators.
Credit: Socialblade
So, what the hell happened here?
It’s no secret that YouTube is fighting a constant battle against its ignorance of its own platform. But to show their cards at this event, in particular, is embarrassing. It’d be one thing to feed McBroom and Johnson to advertisers who are more interested in a creator’s shiny facade than the intricacies of their reputation in the YouTube community. But it’s another thing entirely to highlight McBroom and Johnson at an event for creators, held specifically to convince creators that you understand them.
The choice proves just how out of touch YouTube remains when it comes to the issues in their community, and why an event like “Made on YouTube” might still fall flat for the very creators it’s meant to serve.