Our national nightmare is over: Seth Green’s kidnapped Bored Ape NFT has returned home

After a dramatic month, comedian and actor Seth Green has finally seen the safe return of his Bored Ape NFT that was stolen during a phishing attack (thanks, Buzzfeed (opens in new tab)). According to Etherscan records, (opens in new tab) Green paid 165 Ether (nearly $300,000) in exchange for Bored Ape #8339, which the man who plays Joker in Mass Effect refers to as “Fred Simian.” Get it?

Green went to Twitter in May to announce that he “got phished and had 4 NFT stolen.” The Family Guy voice actor supposedly fell for a phishing scam that resulted in his OpenSea account being compromised, and his NFTs pilfered, although we can’t be certain the whole thing isn’t an elaborate marketing scheme for his upcoming show.

The scammer then sold Fred to someone named Mr Cheese (who also goes by DarkWing87) for almost $200K. Green tried contacting Mr Cheese in May to retrieve his stolen Fred.

Mr Cheese claimed that he had no idea he was paying for the stolen property since the NFT wasn’t flagged as suspicious at the time. It seems that Green and Mr Cheese came to an agreement even after Mr Cheese told Buzzfeed that he had no plans to return it, but was willing to chat with Seth Green about it. It looks like they settled on almost $300,000 for Fred Simian’s return home, which is about $100K more than Mr Cheese originally paid for the NFT. 

Green’s Ape still has a “reported for suspicious activity” tag in its OpenSea listing (opens in new tab), meaning that the NFT can no longer be bought or sold. This isn’t the first time OpenSea has been at the center of bizarre NFT ownership kerfuffles (opens in new tab). 

Green claimed his Ape was kidnapped just days before he was set to reveal that it was to be featured in his new animated series, called White House Tavern, along with other characters from his NFT collection. With the NFT stolen, the show’s development was supposedly paused since Green could longer commercially adapt the NFT because he didn’t own it anymore. 

What does the return of Fred mean for Seth Green’s show? I guess we will find out soon. The ordeal serves as a good reminder to be careful when opening strange links in emails and other messages, lest the star of your TV show is apenapped, too.