(NEW YORK) — The numbers “421” have apparently eclipsed “420” at least in New Jersey, where cannabis consumers celebrated Thursday’s first day of legalized pot sales and toking up for adults.
Weed buyers lined up before sunrise outside seven recreational cannabis dispensaries across the Garden State waiting for the doors to open and lay down some green for some green for the first time without a medical excuse or legal risk.
The first customer in line outside the RISE dispensary in Bloomfield described the moment as “Christmas morning.”
“I didn’t even sleep tonight,” Chris, who was in line before 6 a.m., told New York City ABC station WABC. “I was, like, working a later night, and I just knew I had to be here. I just want to be part of that. Today is the day that we’re just free to do it without any consequences.”
The landmark day comes 17 months after New Jersey voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to change the state constitution to allow for marijuana legalization.
State officials purposely chose April 21 for the inaugural day to legally light up to avoid dispensaries being overwhelmed with business on April 20, the traditional day pot smokers worldwide celebrate weed.
New Jersey becomes the 18th state in the nation to legalize the sale of recreational pot to consumers 21 and older. Vermont became the first state in 2018 to do so. Washington, D.C., and Guam, an unincorporated U.S. territory, also allow legal cannabis commerce.
“This is a historic step in our work to create a new cannabis industry,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said ahead of the launch.
State regulators approved permits for seven dispensaries that already sell medical marijuana to start retailing recreational weed on Thursday.
State officials said they are considering more than 300 applications for retail cannabis licenses. New Jersey is prioritizing granting licenses to dispensaries run by minorities, women and disabled veterans, especially those whose careers have been harmed by marijuana convictions on their records.
Cannabis dispensaries also opened Thursday in Patterson, Maplewood, Phillipsburg, Rochelle Park, Elizabeth and Lawrence Township. Most of the stores plan to stay open until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m.
The dispensaries are only accepting cash purchases because under federal law marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 drug, a status that discourages banks and credit card companies from extending services to cannabis operations.
The House of Representatives voted this month to approve legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and remove criminal penalties for certain cannabis-related offenses. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has vowed to make marijuana legislation a priority and is working on a separate bill with Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., expected to be introduced soon but would need all Democrats and at least 10 Republicans to pass the Senate.
Melissa Correa of Plainfield told WABC that the historic day in New Jersey was extra special because it falls on her 42nd birthday.
Waiting to make a purchase of some party favors at the RISE dispensary in Bloomfield, Correa said, “It looks great. It smells great.”
(NEW YORK) — Over 20,000 car seats are being recalled due to loose pieces of foam that can present a choking hazard to kids.
The recall impacts certain CYBEX Sirona M Convertible Child Car Seats, which were manufactured between Nov. 3, 2017, and Aug. 31, 2018, and include model numbers 518000385, 518002153, 518000387, 518002145, 518002149, 518002151 and 519000211.
The recall, posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), impacts about 20,526 car seats. The documents said children can pick pieces of foam from the child seat headrest pad, posing a choking hazard.
To fix the issue, Columbus Trading-Partners USA, Inc will mail a kit with instructions on how to seal the headrest foam, free of charge.
CYBEX did not immediately respond to request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — As summer approaches, travelers are preparing for trips in huge numbers after many people put off vacations for years during the COVID-19 pandemic — and that’s being reflected in the prices.
“This summer, Americans can expect to pay more for airfare than they have paid in the last 10 years,” Hayley Berg, an economist at Hopper, an online booking platform, told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “Right now, domestic round trip travel costs about $360, and that’s up 15% versus 2019, the last normal year of travel before the pandemic, and up significantly since the start of the year.”
But even though prices for travel are up amid the increased demand for travel, travelers can still get good deals, according to travel experts, who have a few key tips for locking in low airfare rates as summer travel heats up.
Berg recommends customers book summer flights by the first week of May. After that, “prices will just continue to rise,” Berg said.
“If you’re planning a trip right now, be aggressive, start planning early and take a look at your route that you’re flying and how busy it is,” added Willis Orlando, senior product operations specialist for Scott’s Cheap Flights.
Although you can wait for a sale or a day when fares have dropped on popular routes where there is a lot of competition, booking early is especially important if you are booking a trip in a region or route that does not have a lot of competition, Orlando told GMA.
“If your route is served by one or two airlines at most, you don’t have that competition, you can expect these high prices to persist,” Orlando said. “In that case, start monitoring it early, and as soon as you see a dip to a reasonable level, lock it in, because you’re not likely to see a drop much further than that.”
When shopping for airfare, flexibility in terms of dates and locations can mean better prices, whether that means leaving on a different day of the week or flying into a smaller, regional airport.
“Try booking your departing flight on a Tuesday or Wednesday, when prices are typically the lowest,” Berg said. “Or if you’re flexible on where you fly into or out of, check out more regional airports. Oftentimes, lower cost carriers will fly out of regional airports.”
Another good way to get a good deal is to track prices for preferred flights.
“Use a price monitoring tool, so you’re updated on where prices are and how they’re changing,” Berg said.
Another concern that experts point to are pilot shortages, which have led to some airlines trimming summer flight schedules as well as delays and cancellations across the industry.
To avoid that, experts say to book on off-peak days and to book flights for the morning. If you’re traveling for a wedding or other specific event, Berg recommends arriving a day or two early, in case there are delays or cancellations.
“The biggest thing you can do is be flexible and fly kind of off-peak, so if you’re flying out of try flying on a Tuesday or Wednesday or Saturday. It is a little less busy those days, which means that if there is a problem somewhere, it’s less likely to cascade into a kind of mass cancellation event,” Orlando said.
(NEW YORK) — Barbie is officially releasing a Queen Elizabeth II doll to celebrate both the queen’s 96th birthday and her Platinum Jubilee, which marks 70 years on the throne.
The Queen Elizabeth II Barbie doll, part of Barbie’s Tribute Collection series, will go on sale Thursday, which is April 21, the queen’s birthday.
It marks the first Barbie made in Queen Elizabeth’s likeness, according to Mattel.
The doll is dressed in an ivory gown inspired by the “style and color of a gown that she’s favored in royal portraits of herself,” Mattel said in a statement.
The Queen Elizabeth II doll also features regal details, such as Queen Mary’s fringe tiara, which Queen Elizabeth wore on her wedding day, and medallions of the orders of the royal family.
The doll’s packaging is inspired by Buckingham Palace, the queen’s residence in London, with red carpeting, a crest-shaped logo and a badge marking the queen’s Platinum Jubilee, according to Mattel.
“In 1952, when she came to the throne, women were not encouraged to work and politicians expressed doubts about a young female monarch — but she showed them wrong, proved herself an adept leader and diplomat,” Kate Williams, author of Our Queen Elizabeth, a picture book on the queen, said in a statement provided by Mattel. “As Her Majesty celebrates this milestone jubilee, it is wonderful to see an iconic brand like Barbie share important historical female figures impact as leaders, creators and pioneers to new generations.”
Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne on Feb. 6, 1952, following the death of her father, King George VI.
Her 70-year reign makes her the longest-ruling monarch in Britain’s history.
The Queen Elizabeth II Barbie doll will retail for $75 and will be sold on Mattel’s website as well as retailers including Amazon, Target and Walmart.
(NEW YORK) — After decades of work fighting to save African animals, Jane Goodall is turning her attention to the environmental and political impact left on technology.
The anthropologist spoke with ABC News’ Linsey Davis Tuesday about her recent partnership with Apple to encourage customers to recycle their devices. Goodall said reusing the metals and chemicals inside a phone, tablet or computer goes a long way to reduce peoples’ carbon footprint and will cut down on unnecessary mineral mining around the world.
“So many businesses are just ramping forward and not caring about the long-term environmental protection as much as short-term profit. Yes, people need to make money, but it is possible to make money without destroying the planet,” Goodall told ABC News. “We’ve gone so far in destroying the planet that it’s shocking.”
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, told ABC News that an iPhone contains more than 100 chemicals.
Jackson, the former administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said that the tech company has been pushing to reduce its environmental waste through its recycling program and has seen some success.
Last year, 20% of materials in Apple devices were recycled materials, she said.
“We want to see that number continue to grow and the only way that happens is if users and customers bring back their devices at the end of their life,” Jackson said.
Goodall noted that one of the materials used in modern devices is coltan, and mining for the material has not only harmed the environment but also leads to deadly and unethical working conditions in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“It’s underground tunnels [where] it’s dug. They’re not properly shored up. Children, basically, slaves are sent down in the tunnels. So many get killed,” she said.
Jackson pointed out that Apple ensures that the company is not using conflict minerals and dangerous supply lines in its products.
Apple is working with Goodall’s Roots and Shoots program, which works with young people in different communities to combat the climate crisis.
“What I love so much about Jane, Dr. Goodall, is that she challenges us every day to think more about the future, and she never lets us give up hope. Those two things together are the most powerful device, the most powerful thing we can do for the planet,” Jackson said.
Goodall echoed this message and encouraged people to stay hopeful for the planet.
“If you give nature a chance, it’s amazingly resilient,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — After undergoing a major brand revamp, Victoria’s Secret has continued to roll out new, inclusive launches including it’s recent venture: Happy Nation.
The lingerie retailer announced the new brand on Tuesday and revealed that it is a fully digital brand for tweens ages 8-13.
This new release includes a large assortment of genderless, size-inclusive undergarments, swimwear, apparel and body care.
Happy Nation was inspired and developed by a mix of the company’s internal leaders, many of which are parents to tweens, as well as external experts who had an aim to ensure everything from its creative to photography and social media communications foster a safe, inclusive and supportive environment.
Throughout the lineup of items, shoppers will notice standard sizing ranging from S – XL to extended sizes that include SM+ – XL+.
“We heard from tweens and their parents that they felt like there isn’t an apparel or beauty brand that celebrates and lends a helping hand in their personal evolution,” said Claudine Rankin, GM at Happy Nation, in a statement. “As a mother, I feel a deep responsibility to be intentional about every decision behind this brand. The tween years can be a time of immense change and challenges yet excitement for both tweens and their parents, and we hope Happy Nation can provide the authenticity that younger generations crave, while offering comfy clothing and body care products that kids and their parents can feel good about.”
There are currently no plans to bring the kid-friendly brand to physical retail stores, but the brand does plan to engage with those interested on its social media platforms. There are also plans to activate in the metaverse — which is a first for any of Victoria’s Secret & Co.’s brands.
(NEW YORK) — Growing concerns over cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the United States are prompting record investments from firms to protect critical industries.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said last month that intelligence officials were “concerned” about the possibility of Russian cyberattacks against critical U.S. infrastructure in the wake of Russia’s war with Ukraine.
“The reason we’re concerned about it is not just based on our longstanding understanding of how the Russians operate, but it’s actually the product of specific investigative work and surveillance work that we’ve been doing all together,” Wray told an audience at the Detroit Economic Club in March.
Wray’s comments came a few weeks before Tuesday’s announcement that Goldman Sachs planned to expand its reach in supply chain cybersecurity, investing $125 million in a strategic partnership with a company that serves energy, government and aerospace and defense accounts.
Nikhil Gupta, a professor with New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, who is affiliated with the NYU Center for Cyber Security, told ABC News the investment was part of a growing trend.
Over the past year, several private investment firms have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in cybersecurity. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital spent $525 million to acquire mobile security vendor Zimperium last month; Turn/River Capital acquired security policy management firm Tufin for $570 million earlier this month; and software security giant McAfee sold its Enterprise business to Symphony Technology Group for $4 billion dollars in March 2021.
Gupta noted that “more than 70% of manufacturing is conducted by actually small and medium-sized companies, and these companies don’t have resources to invest in upgrading their computers or, or implementing cybersecurity solutions.”
He added, “A lot of times they are manufacturing companies and they just don’t have expertise to even understand the value of electronic files which are transmitted to them.”
Goldman Sachs billed its $125 million investment as part of a new strategic venture with Fortress Information Security, a company responsible for securing 40% of the U.S. power grid, as well as assets in critical manufacturing and the nation’s defense industries.
Fortress is seen by industry insiders as one of the nation’s leading cybersecurity providers for critical infrastructure organizations with digitized assets. The company says its platform is focused on allowing customers to manage their outside vendors, assets and software as a part of their supply chains. The firm also maintains a central repository of security information shared by utility companies across the country.
“The depth and breadth of the Fortress platform are unmatched and we believe there is a meaningful opportunity to accelerate,” Will Chen, a managing director for asset management at Goldman Sachs, said in a statement about the new venture.
Chen noted Goldman Sachs’ investment will allow Fortress to expand its platform into “product adjacencies, including software and hardware bill of materials, workflow orchestration, and additional analytics and reporting capabilities.”
Gupta, the NYU professor, said the hefty investment was a start and “this investment should not be just one time.”
“No amount of investment is enough, and you can look at the attacks that’s happening and the targets that you have to save like nuclear power plants, and the supply chain for other kinds of manufacturing goods, which goes into billions of dollars,” he said.
Fortress Chief Operating Officer Betsy Soehren Jones told ABC News that the company’s “biggest risk right now is with small and midsize companies in the United States because they don’t think about cyber the same way that they think about a CPA or hiring a law firm or HR or anything else.”
“This can’t not be part of what they spend money on, but they don’t and so they become the biggest targets because of the information that they have,” she added.
Retired Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, a senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told ABC News “the big issue is that we are vulnerable.”
“We know we’re going to be compromised. The question is, can we mitigate the impact of it and recover from it rapidly? That’s where investments are needed. That’s why investments like this one contribute to improve cybersecurity,” Montgomery said.
In recent years, the number of cyberattacks — specifically ransomware attacks — against the government and private companies have increased, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last year at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event.
One of the biggest vulnerabilities is linked to a commonly used piece of software called Log4j, a utility that runs in the background of many commonly used software applications, according to Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Log4j is widely used across the internet — from cell phones to e-commerce to internet-connected devices in homes and offices.
“This vulnerability, which is being widely exploited by a growing set of threat actors, presents an urgent challenge to network defenders given its broad use,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement in December.
Soehren Jones says the Goldman Sachs investment will allow them to address these types of vulnerabilities faster.
“The speed at which you answer these things is so critical. That’s what this is going to do…it’s going to be able to put us on warp speed when it comes to a response,” Soehren Jones said.
With the investment, Fortress said it plans to double in size in a year, growing to 400 employees.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has announced nearly two dozen arrests of alleged fraudsters who prosecutors say have engaged in elaborate and brazen schemes to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic, raking in nearly $150 million in illicit proceeds so far.
In a TV network exclusive, officials told ABC News the enforcement action includes criminal charges against 21 individuals in nine federal districts across the country for their alleged participation in COVID-19 fraud schemes.
The charges, brought against individuals ranging from medical business owners and executives to physicians and marketers, also involve multiple alleged manufacturers of fake COVID-19 vaccination cards.
Losses from the alleged schemes top $149 million and counting, according to the Justice Department. Officials say the DOJ has so far seized more than $8 million in cash from the coordinated takedown.
“This COVID-19 health care fraud enforcement action involves extraordinary efforts to prosecute some of the largest and most wide-ranging pandemic frauds detected to date,” Director for COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Kevin Chambers said in a statement. “The scale and complexity of the schemes prosecuted today illustrates the success of our unprecedented interagency effort to quickly investigate and prosecute those who abuse our critical health care programs.”
Behind the scenes, federal officials say they have quietly persevered to “root out” fraudsters in action and hold them accountable, leveraging an interagency approach.
“Today’s enforcement action reinforces our commitment to using all available tools to hold accountable medical professionals, corporate executives, and others who have placed greed above care during an unprecedented public health emergency,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement.
The alleged fraud varies widely, from accusations of exorbitant billing for sham telemedicine encounters, to COVID-19 testing allegedly used as bait to bundle with other unrelated and unnecessary testing services for the submission of false claims, to the large-scale manufacture of forged vaccination records. The Justice Department has charged individuals across eight states — California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Washington, Maryland, Tennessee and Utah — in connection with the schemes over the past week.
In one such alleged scheme in California, two owners of a clinical laboratory, Imran Shams and Lourdes Navarro, have been charged with a health care fraud, kickback and money-laundering scheme aimed at defrauding Medicare of over $214 million for laboratory tests, including more than $125 million in false and fraudulent claims during the pandemic for COVID-19 and respiratory pathogen tests. No pleas have yet been entered in the case.
In two separate cases, one in Maryland and one in New York, owners of medical clinics allegedly obtained confidential information from patients seeking drive-through COVID-19 testing, submitting fraudulent claims for lengthy office visits that investigators say did not, in fact, occur.
According to the indictment, the profits from these false claims were then allegedly laundered through shell corporations in the U.S., transferred abroad, and used to buy real estate and other luxury items.
In another case, investigators allege that a postal worker in New Jersey made “thousands of dollars” on sales of more than 400 fake COVID-19 vaccination cards, and enabled others to resell and redistribute the cards she made — which she produced using a printer and ink at the postal office where she worked, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday. The defendant, Lisa Hammell, allegedly sought to hide their electronic payment transactions by describing them as items like “movie tickets” or “dinner and drinks.”
Hammell, who was arrested Tuesday and does not currently have an attorney listed on her court docket, allegedly messaged an unidentified individual on March 27, 2021, showing off two fake cards she printed.
Through “deceit, craft, trickery, and dishonest means,” investigators say those they have now brought charges against “knowingly and intentionally” conspired to defraud the United States by impairing federal health authorities’ efforts to get shots in arms and beat back the spread of COVID-19. No further pleas have yet been entered.
In another unsealed indictment, investigators allege a Colorado man and unnamed co-conspirators made “hundreds” of fake vaccine records earning “thousands of dollars” from the scheme, selling fraudulent cards to “hundreds of individuals in at least a dozen states,” according to the indictment.
The man, Robert Van Camp, allegedly sold cards to at least four undercover law enforcement officers for between $120 and $175 per card, and claimed that he had sold fake cards to three unnamed Olympians and their coach.
“I’ve got people that are going to the Olympics in Tokyo, three Olympians and their coach in Tokyo, Amsterdam, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Honduras,” Van Camp told an undercover agent, according to the indictment.
Van Camp took care to customize the cards, according to a criminal affidavit, asking one undercover agent if they preferred any particular dates for when they purportedly got their shots — explaining if they were flying soon, airlines preferred the second dose to be administered at least a couple weeks before the flight. He allegedly asked if any of the individuals getting the fake cards were married, offering to make a partner’s card “look different from one another, so that the cards would not look like they came off an assembly line when they travelled together,” the filing said.
“My cards are f—ing worldwide,” Van Camp told one undercover agent, according to the affidavit. “I mean, these things are gold.”
He boasted he had a “hookup on the real, real ‘V’ card,” that he had “done it for about 700 of my customers.”
As of Wednesday morning Van Camp has not entered a plea or retained an attorney in his case.
ABC News first reported last year on the burgeoning market for counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards, which had set off alarm bells for federal health officials, who warned the demand for fake proof of immunity was on the rise, threatening the nation’s hard-fought gains against the virus.
The illicit industry for forged cards hit its stride just as new vaccine requirements were put in place at the federal, state and local levels, and in both the public and private sectors — requiring proof of inoculation in order to work at a hospital, teach or attend school, work out at the gym, or eat inside a restaurant — yet some Americans held back, with some railing against the mandates.
For enterprising fraudsters, that hesitance posed a ripe opportunity.
One unnamed individual listed in the indictment allegedly privately messaged Hammell last summer: “Good morning, random question … can you get me a vaccine card? My mom works for [a hospital] and they are forcing everyone to get the vaccine and she definitely is adamantly against it.”
“I can as long as no one knows where it came from,” Hammell allegedly responded, according to the indictment.
Earlier this month, a naturopathic doctor in California who was arrested last year for allegedly scheming to sell fake COVID-19 immunizations and vaccination cards pleaded guilty — and is allegedly linked to the larger string of arrests announced by federal authorities Wednesday.
“The attempt to profit from the COVID-19 pandemic by targeting beneficiaries and stealing from federal health care programs is unconscionable,” Inspector General Christi Grimm of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement Wednesday. “HHS-OIG is proud to work alongside our law enforcement partners at the federal and state level to ensure that bad actors who perpetrate egregious and harmful crimes are held accountable.”
Appraising fraudsters’ exploitation of the pandemic relief system this spring, top federal oversight officials warned members of Congress that the COVID-19 pandemic had created a “perfect storm” for fraudulent compensation claims, with a lack of proper oversight pairing with an unprecedented cash infusion to incentivize criminals amid a global crisis.
Criminal COVID-19 schemes have been an ongoing and thorny issue for the government to pursue, with the pandemic creating an avenue for fraudsters to supercharge their schemes. So far, the Justice Department has filed criminal charges against more than 1,000 defendants, opening more than 240 civil investigations into more than 1,800 individuals and entities, “together involving billions of dollars in suspected fraud,” OMB deputy director for management Jason Miller estimated in March.
But officials note that the current figures likely reflect only a fraction of the funds that experts believe may have been defrauded over the pandemic’s two plus years.
The ultimate amount of COVID-19 fraud will be “very large,” Justice Department Inspector General and Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Michael Horowitz testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in March, adding that agencies would jointly use “all of our tools — criminal, civil administrative suspension and debarment, forfeiture, to try and recover the funds that have been stolen.”
“We’re doing that and we’re making every effort,” Horowitz said.
(NEW YORK) — Spend enough time online, and you’re sure to run into scammers who try to steal your money by asking you to confirm your credit card information or sign up for fake PC protection plans. Now, online scams have reached the lucrative world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — and a group of tech sleuths are fighting back.
Financial crime specialist and crypto expert Nik Horniacek fell for his first NFT scam in December. Excited about a popular NFT venture that was launching in February, he clicked on a social media link that he thought would lead him to the project site, but instead drained all his cryptocurrency.
Today, Horniacek is the cofounder of Rug Pull Finder, a private intelligence company that investigates NFT projects — and to date has exposed nearly 200 scams totaling over $1.3 billion, according to the organization. Horniacek is one of many online crypto sleuths that track NFTs as celebrities, companies, political candidates and members of the public embrace the latest cryptocurrency phenomenon.
NFTs are digital assets that cannot be replicated and can be used to represent real-world items. Like collectible artwork and rare baseball cards, the value of an NFT derives from it being unique. The digital tokens are stored in a digital wallet through a decentralized public ledger known as a blockchain, and can be held as digital memorabilia, or sold and traded for investment purposes.
As the popularity of NFTs continues to soar, scams like the one Horniacek fell for and other types of illicit activity involving non-fungible tokens are only expected to rise, law enforcement officials and crypto experts told ABC News.
Investments in NFTs skyrocketed last year, with digital token marketplaces and collections growing from $106 million in 2020 to $44.2 billion in 2021, according to a report by analytics firm Chainanalysis.
But the Chainanalysis report also found that “as is the case with any technology, NFTs offer the potential for abuse.” Among the types of illicit NFT activity the group identified were the use of money laundering to hide assets, and the use of “wash trading” to artificially increase NFTs’ value.
According to the report, last year sellers made $8.9 million from the sale of NFTs “to unsuspecting buyers who believe the NFT they’re purchasing has been growing in value.”
As a result of illicit activity, federal agencies are expanding their crime fighting efforts into crypto crime and digital assets. In February, the U.S. Secret Service launched a cryptocurrency awareness hub and the Department of Justice announced the first director of its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.
A DOJ official told ABC News that while scams and fraud have been around for many years, they have been “turbocharged” by the growth of cryptocurrency and the popularity of digital assets like NFTs.
In March, the DOJ brought its first NFT case when it charged two defendants with executing a million-dollar fraud scheme after they promised investors the benefits of an NFT collection called Frosties, then allegedly shut down the website and transferred away all the money they received from the sale of the tokens. According to the complaint, the defendants were preparing to launch a second set of NFTs that was anticipated to generate approximately $1.5 million in cryptocurrency proceeds.
An attorney for one of the defendants, Ethan Nguyen, told ABC News that Nguyen pleaded not guilty and has been released on bond. The attorney said that Nguyen “looks forward to addressing the charges responsibly in court.”
The attorney for the other defendant, Andre Llacuna, did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
“The rise and popularity of various cryptocurrencies have changed the landscape of buying and selling investments, leading to ample opportunities for new fraud schemes,” said U.S. Postal Inspection Service Inspector-in-Charge Daniel Brubaker in a press release about the case. “These assets may seem like a good deal or a way to become wealthy, but in many cases, as in this situation, only lead to the loss of your money.”
Another reason that digital assets like NFTs make for dangerous scams is that there’s no entity regulating transactions — so funds can be instantly moved across borders, without any monitoring, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
Like Horniacek, crypto sleuth ZachXB — who prefers to go by his social media handle — has turned exposing NFT scammers into a full-time job. With almost 200,000 followers on Twitter, ZachXB says he’s uncovered more than 100 NFT scams.
ZachXB said that many NFT scams occur when the offering looks “too good to be true.” Because digital tokens often come with real-life perks like exclusive access to events, people often fall prey to projects that promise those kind of special amenities, ZachXB said.
“I hate seeing all those people lose their money, and others get rich by harming others,” ZachXB told ABC News. “The space is really intimidating and there’s so much to learn. But it’s also amazing.”
Horniacek told ABC News that he wants to help create a positive environment where digital tokens can grow and evolve.
“I asked myself, how can I positively impact the space so that we can continue to move the space forward for the benefit of everybody?” said Horniacek.
“The technology is truly revolutionary,” he said. “I think we’re going to see a lot more innovation over the course of the next 12 to 24 months, and that is my biggest motivation.”
(NEW YORK) — As the effects of climate change prompt more urgency to cut greenhouse gas emissions around the world and reduce energy use, every industry is facing scrutiny about their impact on the climate and the environment.
Video games, media, and entertainment companies, in particular, require a significant amount of energy to run powerful computers, high-speed internet connections and cloud-based technologies.
One study estimated that gaming worldwide used the same amount of energy as 5 million cars. Gaming consoles or computers also contribute to the 50 million tons of electronic waste produced every year, only 20% of which is recycled, according to the UN Environmental Programme.
But video games also have a huge audience of players, fans and commentators around the world. And the United Nations saw an opportunity to reach both the industry and its audience with a message about the importance of combating climate change.
“Three billion people play games. Nearly one person in every two on the planet is either on their phone or on their console at home. So this medium is the most powerful medium in the world. And so we think working with this industry to make a difference can unlock all kinds of different changes in people,” said Sam Barratt, the chief of a unit of the UN Environmental Programme that works to engage young people with environmental issues.
“So, for us, I would say the climate crisis is everyone, everywhere, all at once to try and make a difference, which is why the video gaming industry has to have sleeves up on this, which is what we’re trying to do.”
Barratt said he was inspired to reach out to video game developers after watching how much time his children, especially his 12-year-old son, spent playing games like Minecraft, FIFA, or Roblox.
“He spends a lot of time in games, and it just made me think, how can this medium not just kind of entertain people, but also give them opportunities to make a difference? So, we came up with the idea of Playing 4 The Planet just to explore what was possible in gaming,” Barratt told ABC News.
Since its 2019 launch, Barrett said the Playing 4 The Planet Alliance has worked with over 40 companies and industry groups to set standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution. They also use initiatives like their Green Game Jam developer competition to incorporate environmental messages into both small educational games and big-name franchises.
Alenda Chang, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games, said there’s a lot of potential to use games to change how people think about the environment.
Chang said many video games treat nature as a beautiful backdrop or a source of resources but that the interactive and immersive nature of games could allow players to experiment and learn about humans’ impact on the natural world as a living, breathing ecosystem in a way that sticks with them more than simply hearing or reading about it. She pointed to games like Shelter, where gamers play as a mother badger protecting her cubs, as a way to help gamers empathize with a non-human perspective or games like SimCity that can demonstrate large-scale impacts of human society.
“I think the biggest overall takeaway is that play actually does matter. That play is not a sort of secondary realm that’s frivolous or escapist,” Chang said, adding that’s what many adults are led to believe.
“But as a professor who studies and writes about video games … to me it’s very clear that solutions and sort of collectivization around climate change and other environmental issues are social.”
Sony Interactive Entertainment, the parent company of PlayStation, launched a conservation campaign with one of its biggest game releases of the year, Horizon: Forbidden West. The game revolves around the main character, Aloy, as she tries to save a future Earth from threats like diseased land, enemies including hostile animal-like machines, and worsening storms.
Kieran Meyers, senior director of environmental and social governance for Sony Interactive Entertainment, said the game inspired the company to emphasize the real-world importance of natural ecosystems.
“The game shows they see these post-apocalyptic scenes where nature is taking over. And basically, that narrative really speaks to our world where we all sort of want to make a difference,” Meyers told ABC News.
Sony partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant nearly 300,000 trees in areas impacted by deforestation or wildfires in California, Wisconsin and Florida.
“[PlayStation] met their customers, they met their network where they are, doing what they love to do — playing games. And they found a creative way to engage them and inspire them, to be a part of advancing our common goals of planting trees and doing something great for the planet,” Arbor Day Foundation director Dan Lambe told ABC.
Lambe said that planting trees alone isn’t going to solve the climate crisis but it’s a good place to start.
Meyers said Sony has also set goals to reach a zero-environmental footprint by 2050, including by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in their workplaces and supply chain, eliminating the use of virgin materials and phasing out materials that pose environmental risks.
On Earth Day this year, the UN’s Green Game Jam competition will judge competing games on how well they incorporate these environmental messages. The UN initiative hopes to reach hundreds of millions of gamers through the campaign.
One of the Green Game Jam winners in 2021, Anno 1800, used in-game events where players were forced to clean up pollution from invading armies and challenging players to build a new society without damaging too many natural resources.
The game’s publisher, Ubisoft, also used money from paid content within the game to fund efforts to plant more than 300,000 trees.
“I think overall, maybe in the end, the goal is to see how we can translate online actions into real life benefits for the planet and our communities and our players. And that’s something no other type of media can do,” Ubisoft’s director of Environment and Social Governance, Nicolas Hunsinger, said.
