Victims of influencers file a complaint for fraud and breach of trust

An attorney for the plaintiffs announced Monday that a class-action lawsuit has been filed by dozens of people who believe they were scammed by investing in financial products promoted by famous influencers, including Dubai-based couple Mark and the Plata Club.

Lawyer Alexandre Dacos said during a press conference that two collective complaints brought together 88 joint complaints, notably on “fraud” and “breach of trust” that were filed on Friday with the Paris prosecutor.

He explained that these complaints were filed “against X” but primarily target the practices of influential couple Mark and the Plata club “and the network that allows them not to act on their own.”

AFP called, and Mark and the Plata club did not immediately respond.

These complaints come in the wake of the couple’s sale and promotion of two financial products, the NFT “Animoon” and the trading channel “Blatagang”, in which thousands of their subscribers have invested, without seeing the promised gains, according to the lawyer.

The first, is an NFT, and thus a virtual work of art, and the second, a Telegram channel that encourages “copy trading,” via investment platforms that offer imitations of purchases by professional traders in hopes of getting rich easily.

According to Me Dacos, the total damages are estimated at €6.3 million, with “thousands of investors losing from a few hundred to €100,000” in these two projects.

According to their lawyers, from Ziegler & Associates, which specializes in cryptocurrency fraud, it will be a so-called “rug pull” scam. This common scam involves a developer, sometimes using influencer promotion, luring investors to a new cryptocurrency project and then quitting before the project is built, leaving the investors with worthless currency.

Marc Plata, with more than 4 million subscribers on Instagram, and active in promoting these products, has gained notoriety on social networks with his “croustis”, presented as a discovery in the world of reality TV, rap stars or soccer. .

The action is a “first” according to the AVI Collective (Aid for Victims of Influencers) that has initiated it, bringing together several alleged victims of the couple Blata which states in a press release that it wants to “warn the public about the dangers of promoting some unscrupulous ‘stars’ and” signaling negativity platforms” while encouraging other victims to file a complaint.

Rapper Bubba embarked on a crusade against the Plata couple in December 2021, regularly decrying on social media the dangers of fraud around products promoted by influencers in Dubai.

Another complaint targeted influencer Dylan Terry, who is accused of misappropriating funds raised in electronic cats with his humane association.