Frosties: $1.1 million gone within hours of the mint finishing
Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna, both 20, created "Frosties," an 8,888-piece Ethereum NFT collection that promised buyers a themed video game and ongoing community rewards. Within hours of the mint selling out in January 2022, the pair transferred the roughly $1.1 million in proceeds to their own wallets and shut the project down. The Justice Department charged them the following March — one of its first criminal prosecutions of an NFT rug pull. In 2025, Llacuna testified he had since pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud, while giving evidence in the unrelated criminal trial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm about how he and Nguyen used the mixing service to hide the money.
- Year
- 2022
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Convicted
- Reported loss
- $1.1 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- NFT and crypto token rug pulls
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-16
The facts, as recorded
- Ethan Nguyen (alias "Frostie") and Andre Llacuna (alias "heyandre") were both 20 years old when Frosties, an 8,888-NFT collection depicting cartoon ice cream scoops, minted on Ethereum for 0.04 ETH each in January 2022.
- The pair marketed Frosties as the entry point to a broader community including a video game and reward programme; after the mint sold out, raising roughly $1.1 million in ETH, they shut down the project's Discord and website and moved the funds to personal wallets.
- The Justice Department's Southern District of New York office charged both men on 24 March 2022 with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, each carrying a maximum 20-year sentence; they were arrested in Los Angeles.
- US Attorney Damian Williams said at the time: "Where there is money to be made, fraudsters will look for ways to steal it."
- Prosecutors said the pair had been preparing to launch a second, similar project, Embers, days after their arrest.
- Testifying in August 2025 at the unrelated criminal trial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, Llacuna — by then 23 and working as a hairdresser — said he had pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and had not yet been sentenced.
- Llacuna told jurors that using Tornado Cash "seemed like the best option for us to hide the money and get away with it," and that mixing the ETH made it "harder to trace."
Why this case matters
Frosties was one of the first NFT projects the Justice Department prosecuted criminally as a rug pull, setting the template — wire fraud plus money laundering conspiracy charges — that later NFT cases on this site’s other pages followed. It is also a rare instance where a defendant’s own courtroom testimony, years later, confirms exactly how the laundering worked.
Same-day disappearance
The defining detail is speed. Frosties sold out its full run of 8,888 NFTs and, within hours, its creators had moved the proceeds out and shut the project’s communication channels — a pattern that shows up across the rug pulls on this site’s other cases: the fraud is not a slow unraveling but a single abrupt event immediately after the money arrives.
An unrelated trial reveals the laundering method
Llacuna’s account, given three years later as a witness in the unrelated criminal trial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, is a first-person description of the choice to launder: he testified that mixing the stolen ETH through Tornado Cash was chosen specifically to “hide the money and get away with it.”
The caveat
Llacuna has pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud but, as of his 2025 testimony, had not yet been sentenced. The sources cited here do not report a confirmed guilty plea, conviction or sentencing outcome for Nguyen specifically — only that both men were charged together in 2022. Treat Nguyen’s individual case status as unresolved based on the sources available for this page.
Sources
- US Justice Dept. Charges Ethereum NFT Project Creators Over 'Rug Pull'. Decrypt. Accessed 2026-09-16. Supports: Defendant names, ages, aliases, the NFT count and mint price, the $1.1 million figure, the charges and maximum sentence, the arrest location, the Damian Williams quote, and the planned Embers follow-up project.
- Axie Infinity exec, NFT scammer testify in Roman Storm trial. DL News. Accessed 2026-09-16. Supports: Llacuna's 2025 testimony, his guilty plea to two counts of fraud, his age and occupation at the time of testimony, and his quotes about using Tornado Cash.