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FAKE NEWS: CHUCK E. CHEESE TOKEN ALCHEMYRich Bottles shared this story about a New York hustler turning old Chuck E. Cheese tokens into physical Bitcoins. -Editor
A New York man has been arrested after he reportedly made over a million dollars selling Chuck E. Cheese tokens as Bitcoins on the streets. Marlon Jensen, 36, was arrested a Sunday morning when NYPD stormed his home. NYPD received calls from the fraud victims that someone had sold them “Bitcoins”, only to find out there actually was no tangible bitcoin currency available. NYPD found $1.1 Million of cash inside Marlons home. According to police, Marlon had scratched off most of the Chuck E. Cheese engravements on the coins, and would write “B” on each coin with permanent marker. As many should know already, Bitcoin is a crypto currency and payment system that has recently received unprecedented popularity and value, with each bitcoin currently worth $18,950 USD. Although Bitcoin isn’t actually a tangible form of currency, that hasn’t stopped some people from successfully selling “bitcoins” to people using irrelevant gold coins, in this case Chuck E. Cheese Tokens. “People are retarded haha”, said NYPD Officer Michael West, “My 8 year old son would know those weren’t bitcoins and lord knows he’s not the brightest”. Marlon is currently being charged with fraud and can face up to 5 years in federal prison. To read the complete article, see: I've learned never to underestimate either the creativity of criminals or the stupidity of their victims, but this story didn't ring true. Looking for verification
elsewhere I quickly found articles debunking the story. Here's an excerpt from one from USA Today. -Editor
A story of a "Bitcoin scam" fired across the web this week telling of a New York City man who made $1 million in cash selling doctored Chuck E. Cheese tokens as Bitcoins, the skyrocketing digital currency. Share after share on social media showed people praising the story's conman for duping apparent idiots into falling for the faux currency. They, of course, were the ones duped. The story, "Man arrested after making over $1 million selling Chuck E. Cheese tokens as 'Bitcoins,'" was published on Huzlers.com with no byline. Scroll to the bottom, past the Facebook comment praising the man's plan as "genius," and you find this disclaimer: "Huzlers.com is the most infamous fauxtire & satire entertainment website in the world." If folks clicked past Facebook posts to read the actual story (doubtful), they would have seen tell-tale flags of phony news: the lack of a byline for accountability, the unknown site, plus the bizarre quotes with poor grammar. (“People are retarded haha,” says a NYPD police officer, generically named "Michael West," in the story.) To readthe complete article, see: Chuck E. Cheese tokens sold as Bitcoins? That's not a real story (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/21/chuck-e-cheese-tokens-sold-bitcoins-thats-not-real-story/973173001/) Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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