Robb allegedly despatched a message studying, “Poof, YOU’RE A MILLIONAIRE” to 1 Telegram group, accompanied by this picture of a purple fairy sporting a mushroom cap. The message promised recipients they might strike it wealthy in the event that they used Robb’s MEV bot and invested within the cryptocurrency $RAT and the sarcastically named token NoRugz.
It says Robb requested crypto traders over Telegram and different social media for cash to construct a “Most Extractable Worth” or MEV, crypto buying and selling bot. However after traders despatched the funds, the bot by no means materialized. Traders interviewed by the FBI stated that Robb made a number of excuses for the bot’s delay and by no means complied with any requests for refunds.
The bot described by Robb would supposedly scan blockchain networks to seek out worthwhile buying and selling alternatives and execute them robotically, however there’s no proof that expertise can really work over an prolonged interval. This hasn’t stopped crypto scammers from pushing pretend bots on YouTube, X, and different social media websites and making unlikely guarantees of 10x to 100x returns on their investments.
Robb steadily posted in regards to the MEV bot he was constructing on X and the crypto social media platform Buddy.Tech. In DMs to traders, he claimed he had constructed a prototype of a bot that was ok to yield “huge returns.”
The FBI alleges that over the course of some weeks in 2023, Robb collected at the least $1.5 million from traders. However as a substitute of the funds going towards constructing a crypto buying and selling bot, Robb transferred a lot of the cash to his private financial institution accounts. The FBI’s evaluate of Robb’s monetary transactions indicated that he spent a number of the cash on a two-year lease of an govt suite on the Denver Broncos Mile Excessive Stadium, a luxurious Jeep, and a keep at a trip resort within the Bahamas.
The 46-year-old Robb was arrested in Las Vegas on March twentieth, based on a screenshot of information from the Henderson Police posted by crypto detective ZachXBT on X. The Verge has reached out to Henderson County to request Robb’s police information.
Robb, who posts on X underneath the deal with pokerbrat2019, claims in his bio that he’s a previous sufferer of extortion. Over the previous 12 months, he’s tweeted steadily about MEV bots and steadily warned his followers to look out for crypto scams.
Robb hasn’t posted for the reason that day of his arrest. His final submit, printed at 12:38PM ET on the morning of his arrest, chided his followers for being “far too predictable” and promised an upcoming Solana bot.