Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This TikTok Star Scammed $22,000,000 - The Gavin Mayo story

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Gavin Mayo and his business partner Gabriel Hay are allegedly involved in a $22,000,000 NFT scheme.

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Allegedly. Now, the TikTokers name is Mayo. He's 23, and Mayo is apparently very, very rich. What's your net worth now if you want to review it? Yeah, so I can explain this in a way and I might sound crazy. I'm a billionaire. In fact, Bro claims he has so much money that he'll just roll up and buy a whole ass village. A lot of you in your apartments, you have hot tubs.

Well, I bought a village and part of this village, we have hot springs. Now, where did Mayo get all this money? Well, that's where it gets interesting. Because Mayo, he has a TikTok channel with about 250,000 followers. Not bad. And there, he likes to teach people about crypto and investing. And people follow him and they listen to his advice. See, crypto's that easy, guys.

Fall in for more. And so he makes a bit of money in the stock market. And soon he gets really into buying and selling NFTs. Now eventually he moves to Los Angeles. And there is where things really take off for him, because that's where he comes up with a plan to multiply his money. And so Mayo teams up with a friend of his, this guy, Gabe. And together, Mayo and Gabe planned to create their own NFTs, completely theirs, and they use Mayo's online popularity to promote them.

So they make a Twitter and a website for this NFT project. And Mayo, he starts hyping the project up on social media, and they release this promo video and people are pumped about it. And by the way, these are the actual NFTs they're selling if you wanted to see them. I don't know why anyone would pay money for these, but here they are. But anyway, bam, they launch it and Mayo and Gabe watch the investments pour in. And after they've collected over like a million dollars, kaboom, they allegedly sell off and abandon the project. And of course, this crashes the value of all the NFTs and the people who invested in it are super pissed because they lost all their money. But whatever, Mayo and Gabe got paid, apparently around

a million dollars to split. And so they move on. And allegedly, they decide to do the same thing again. They launch a new NFT-based project. And they hype it all up and they get people excited to invest and they make a website for it. And if you're curious as to what these NFTs look like, here are a few of them. And remember, people paid actual real money to invest in these. But But anyway, so Mayo and Gabe's new NFT project launches, and this one raises more than $420,000. And boom, Mayo and Gabe allegedly sell it off and abandon the project again. And then they allegedly move on and do a similar thing on a new project, and then they do it again and again and again. And they are just raking in the money.

Now at this point, you might be thinking, Ray, why are people investing in their NFT projects if they keep getting scammed? Wouldn't they have a bad reputation by now? Well, that is apparently the secret. Most of these projects, they launch anonymously without their face or name attached to them. Sometimes they'll just make up a fake persona and pretend that that person is the brains behind the project, or they'll hire someone to pretend to be the face of the project. Like this guy was apparently just paid money to pretend to be the face of one of their NFT projects. Now, as Mayo and Gabe's little scheme is growing, at some point they need to hire a team to help them.

and they end up hiring a project manager to organize some stuff. This guy. And I don't know his real name, so we'll just call him Project. And one day, Project is moderating the Discord chat for some of these investors on one of these projects, and this is shortly after they had been scammed by Mayo and Gabe. And people in the chat are talking back and forth like, yo, this feels like a rug pull. Now, a rug pull is a type of NFT or crypto scam. It's basically what they were accusing the Hock Tua girl of being involved in.

So some of these people are pissed. And they're like, yo, this feels like a rug pool. Yeah, it does feel like a rug pool. I think we all got conned. And so Project is moderating this Discord, and I don't know if he feels guilty, or maybe he just values honesty. I don't know. But suddenly, Kaboom, he reveals to everyone in the Discord that Mayo and Gabe are behind the various NFT projects. And Mayo and Gabe see this, and they are pissed.

I mean, they don't want their name dragged through the mud. I mean, they aren't going to let this slide. And so allegedly, they write an email to Project's parents for some reason, which makes me think Project is actually a young guy still living at home. Regardless, they email his parents and they pretend their attorneys from a law firm, like, if Project doesn't stop, he's going to pay. And in this email, they include Project's parents' home address and their ages, which is kind of like a veiled threat, like, yeah, we know who you are and where you live.

Then Mayo and Gabe allegedly pretend to be an angry investor, and they text Project from an unknown number threatening to sue him if he doesn't scrub the chat of Mayo and Gabe's names in the next hour. And this message allegedly includes his parents' names and contact info. A week later, he gets another email from the fake law firm again. And this time, they directly threaten his family. Specifically, they threatened to publicly expose his parents as P3DOs. Now, as far as we know right now, Project doesn't reply and none. Nothing bad happens to his parents.

But a couple of years go by. And by this point, Mayo and Gabe have participated in many NFT in crypto schemes, allegedly. By one estimate, they've conned over $22 million from investors. $22 million for JPEGs, pictures that look like this. What the hell is wrong with people? But whatever, now that Mayo is making stupid money, he's living a baller-ass lifestyle. And of course, he's got to let everyone know about it by flex it on the gram. Here he is buying a Lambo.

Here he is with what looks like a tiger cub and a lion cub. Here he is on a private plane. And not only is he flexing, but it seems like all this money has turned him into a parody of a rich person. Like, look at the way he captions his tweets. I spent $7,000 on a lighter today. We are not the same. I spent $500,000 on a baby tiger today. We are not the same.

I purchased a $30,000 plane ticket. Everything is free when you can print money. Oh, and it's not just when he's talking about money. Like all of his tweets make him look like such an asshole. You need to cheat on your girlfriend to really see if she loves you. Good morning to everyone except people who believe that dinosaurs actually existed. Which college major produces the most hoes? Definitely nursing.

But listen, Mayo is also online giving dietary advice, like here when he encourages his followers to eat raw chicken. For all you're scared about raw chicken. What if you get salmonella? You're going to get sick. Every ounce of cell manella I have fuels my body. Yeah, don't do that. Now, it is during this stint of flexing on social media

that he's going on podcasts, claiming that he's a billionaire. As far as the money calculator thing, I think my net worth is above a billion dollars. Well, he may not actually be a billionaire, but he's definitely made millions off of all his shady NFT projects. Until...

Suddenly, one day, bam, Mayo gets arrested. And then, bam, Gabe gets arrested. Two local men are charged with defrauding investors out of more than $22 million in cryptocurrency. Apparently, at some point, someone, we don't know who, they reported Mayo and Gabe to the feds. Could have been one of the many people who felt scammed by his NFT projects. I don't know. But my guess is after reading this 17-page indictment, is that it was Project who turned him in. I mean, what do you expect after you threatened his parents so many times? But anyway, they're charged with wire fraud, conspiracy, and stalking of all things.

And according to the feds, they're accused of defrauding investors out of $22 million, which will be the largest NFT fraud case ever prosecuted in history. But just a reminder that all of this is alleged. They haven't actually been to trial yet, so we'll see how this one goes.