At least five people were arrested in France on Wednesday for allegedly stealing $2.5 million worth of valuables Bored Monkey Yacht Collection non-fungible tokens.

BAYC NFTs are a collection of 10,000 unique great apes that live on Earth ether ETH/USD Blockchain.

See also: How to Buy Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs

What happened: According to Agence France Presse, France OCCTIC The cybercrime agency received the tip from a Twitter user “ZachXBT” who posted his own investigation online.

ZachXBT is an independent crypto sniffer dog that has been investigating complaints from “the community of owners of the Bored Ape Yacht Club series of limited edition monkeys,” a French cybercrime official was quoted as saying.

Update: I am very pleased to announce that both Mathys and Camille are being prosecuted in France as of today.

Will attach the press release and my article below. https://t.co/Ed5uFnqLAN pic.twitter.com/BNRAaKiJ3i

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 12, 2022

The five defendants were reportedly charged with fraud and criminal association, with prosecutors saying they were part of a criminal gang that stole BAYC-NFTs between late 2021 and early 2022.

See More: How to Buy Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

As they did: The alleged scammers set up a fake website that offered to animate any static noise NFT and phishing credentials from crypto wallets of the undesired individuals, which then gave the criminal gang access to all digital assets owned by individuals, AFP reported.

What’s the catch: ZachXBT said on Twitter that an important part of the research is the use of Tornado Cash TORN/USD by scammers to shuffle and withdraw the funds.

“She [scammers] were not careful to cover their tracks when it came to withdrawing funds from Tornado,” the researcher said.

It should be noted that the US did that Using the Tornado Cash Mixer illegalciting criminal activities and crypto laundering activities.

That NFT Sphere has been on a rollercoaster ride ever since…