A former teenage business prodigy from India has been named as the man behind a recent series of celebrity meme coin launches — with both Caitlyn Jenner and rapper Rich the Kid alleging they have been “scammed” by the man, Sahil Arora.
More recently, Iggy Azalea’s X account appeared to distance the Australian artist from a project bearing her name that was being promoted by Arora as a presale. The token presale raised more than $300,000, while the JENNER token reached more than a $40 million market capitalization amid social media interest in claims and counter-claims of deep fakes and double-dealing.
Arora rejects accusations that he’s a scammer, telling Magazine that many people have made a lot of money from his tokens and that historical allegations against him are from disgruntled investors who lost money trading.
One of his alt accounts also appears to have retweeted other accounts this week claiming that the very celebrities accusing him of scams are still working with him to drum up media interest in meme coin sales.
So, the whole picture is decidedly murky. But what is clear is that Arora has had a reputation for having a long list of celebrity contacts for more than a year, according to a listings manager at a crypto exchange who worked with Arora and who wishes to remain anonymous.
“In fact, even from that time, his main selling point would be that he was in touch with a number of celebrities as well as porn stars,” the listing manager, BA, tells Magazine.
Magazine has obtained a list of high-profile celebrities and adult film stars, with endorsement prices ranging from $6,000 to as high as $315,000, allegedly circulated by Arora.
How this relative unknown gained access to so many celebrities (if he indeed did) remains a mystery. However, Arora has been linked to actress Lindsay Lohan through her husband, Bader Shammas, who was listed on the B2B contacts platform Clodura.ai as the chief growth officer at Arora’s now-defunct ZelaaPayAE project.
However, to complicate the link, there are also historical allegations that Arora listed people as advisors on his ZelaaCoin project who were not involved.
A record of a Telegram channel for a RICH token launch from March (prior to this week’s Rich the Kid developments) details what appears to be a three-day presale conducted by Arora on Avalanche.
In the channel, Arora is seen soliciting potential investors, leading them to send funds to an address.
“He removed the liquidity within 5 minutes of launching the coin,” alleged one investor, who requested anonymity.
Liquidity removal is often referred to as a crypto rug pull and has been seen with several Arora projects.
Cointelegraph cannot confirm Arora personally removed liquidity, however, or the reasons for the removal.
The Avalanche token sales appear to be a minimal side hustle compared to the extensive trail of allegations that date back to 2017, when he was just a teenager.
Multiple sources have come forward claiming that they have been mistreated by Arora, who gains a degree of trust by flaunting his celebrity network and luxurious lifestyle on social media.
The sources requested anonymity for fear that their former association with Arora could tarnish their reputations.
Alleged victims claim to have been charmed by Arora’s friendly behavior and succumbed to investing in his projects. Former employees of Arora claim they have given up on receiving payments.
Arora stopped responding to Magazine’s messages when asked to respond to several public accusations made against him. We’ll update this story if we hear more from him.
From Drake to Caitlyn Jenner: Sahil’s purported celebrity price list
Listings manager BA tells Magazine he met Arora in March 2023 when he was working as a listing manager at a crypto exchange. BA says Arora messaged him “every now and again” to see if he could help with different deal flows.
“In fact, even from that time, his main selling point would be that he was in touch with a number of celebrities as well as porn stars,” BA tells Magazine.
A document shared with Magazine, which BA claims was given to him by Arora, details the prices that Arora claimed he could secure endorsements from 45 different celebrities, movie stars, musicians, and athletes. The price list ranges from $6,000 to $315,000. Caitlyn Jenner is on the list for $15,000, while Rich The Kid is listed for $25,000.
Other celebrities on the list include Justin Bieber ($315,000), The Weeknd (price “subject to content”), Tom Holland (TBD), Eminem ($140,000), Kim Kardashian ($315,000) and Jamie Foxx ($65,000).
The list also contains celebrities with prior associations with crypto, including Snoop Dogg ($125,000), Floyd Mayweather ($15,000), Lindsay Lohan ($10,000) and Soulja Boy ($7,000).
Magazine does not suggest that any of the celebrities agreed to promote cryptocurrencies for those prices or had any discussions with Arora; just that their names appear on a list he allegedly circulated.
A separate price breakdown in a series of Arora’s apparent messages to BA that was forwarded to Magazine details prices linked to 41 different adult film stars, with prices ranging from $500 to $9,900 for a tweet, a follow and a social media story package.
“What really shocked me even to this day is the way he goes about,” BA says. “He does try to act like a friend and tries to build up a lot of this goodwill in order to see if you guys can collaborate.”
Arora gained BA’s trust not only as a frequent direct contact, but with the numerous photos of himself with famous celebrities, including a screenshot of him talking to Canadian rapper Drake. (Drake is also on the list with the note “subject to content.”)
Although BA couldn’t determine whether the screenshot was legitimate, Arora’s apparent rapport and connections led him to think it seemed fairly believable.
BA claimed it was difficult to tell what was true and what was not speaking with him.
“He doesn’t really have any feelings of empathy, but he will mix reality with falsehoods really well. So you don’t really know when he’s telling the truth and you don’t know when he is telling a lie.”
BA says that around November, Arora convinced him to invest in his new project, Habibi. Habibi was presented to BA as a social finance application similar to Friend.tech but targeted toward the Middle East.
BA says he and a couple of his personal friends participated in the project’s presale privately, although its official initial DEX offering (IDO) was on the GemPad platform, but the project’s value dropped by 99% soon after launching.
“I gave away our assets to him for now this worthless coin, I was just very upset,” BA says.
Separately, a Solana-based meme coin project tells Magazine that they lost money to Arora, after he introduced them to an American rapper.
A screenshot of an alleged message exchange shared with Magazine shows Arora acting as the middleman between the two parties in a promotion deal that was agreed for $20,000. But Arora adds another $5,000 to the price, claiming that the celebrity rapper called for a higher price.
“After the payment was done, they just disappeared,” the CEO of the Solana meme coin project claims.
The project’s chief says that they weren’t sure whether the celebrity was even involved but adds that it’s possible both sides were duped by Arora.
Who is Sahi Arora
Arora came to the tech scene as a 17-year-old business prodigy from India’s Gurgaon, a city bordering the capital, New Delhi.
According to the Times of India, the young entrepreneur dropped out of Pathways School, one of the ten most expensive schools in the nation.
He got busy quickly after leaving school.
In 2017, he reportedly founded a taxi app to “take on” Uber, partnered with actor Sahil Khan (who was recently arrested) to launch the advertising platform Tabverts, founded the “ground-breaking” iris scanner Eye-D, and reportedly distributed Bitcoin ATMs “across the world” as the owner of Vuzelaa Group.
None of these projects are live anymore.
One of the earliest public allegations against Arora comes from Vijay Shekhar, founder of Indian payments giant Paytm.
In 2017, Shekhar accused Arora of impersonation, claiming that Arora tried to raise funds using Paytm’s name. Shekhar shared a screenshot of an email that included Arora’s email address tied to Vuzelaa.
Sahil Arora’s trail of allegations dates back to 2017
One of Arora’s most well-known businesses is known as ZelaaPayAe, which Arora appears to be quite proud of.
“I also owned the largest crypto project of Dubai called ZelaaPayAE at some point, the only [one] with an exclusive partnership with VISA,” Arora tells Magazine.
Magazine has talked to three individuals who have worked for Arora’s ZelaaPay project.
One, a contractor who requested anonymity, is listed as an official team member of Zelaacoin, ZelaaPay’s associated project, despite working on just one design-related order for Arora.
The designer says he quit the project after learning that Arora had been accused of multiple scams.
“He didn’t [pay me], but I kept telling him I’m going to report him. That’s when he ended up paying after a long time,” the designer tells Magazine, adding that the order was worth 800 British pounds.
Another pseudonymous employee, who goes by Richard, worked as a Telegram admin for ZelaaPay and Firdaos (another Arora project also known as NFTz).
The admin claims that they were paid $250 a month for three months. After that, they stopped receiving payments.
“We always had to bug them about it, and he’d finally pay, but they would ignore messages for months,” the admin tells Magazine, claiming that he is still owed $2,000 for his work.
VR, who also worked as a ZelaaPay and Firdaos Telegram admin, even went as far as taking out a loan on behalf of Arora. VR tells Magazine that he was never paid back.
The admins shared records of internal Telegram channels with messages dating back to 2020 with Magazine, which reveals VR’s frustrations at allegedly not being repaid $40,000 for a token listing
“I was one of the main holders in NFTz (I believe the fifth largest), and he asked me for the money to pay for the listing on KuCoin, as he claimed he needed that amount! I agreed (and) as a form of guarantee, he gave me some NFTZ tokens! And guess what happened? He went on vacation to the Maldives with his girlfriend! The listing never happened, and in fact, he later changed the name of the project.”
“My lack of experience and believing in him caused that money to be lost forever!” VR claims.
Mystery of Sahil Arora’s celebrity connections
Several sources who have had personal and professional dealings with Arora claim that he has always boasted his connections with famous celebrities, but the sources say they have no idea how these connections were made.
Twitter user Avery Bigweapon, who was one of the first to connect celebrity meme coins with Arora, suggests that it’s possible the celebrities accusing him of scams are still working in tandem with Arora.
“Candy,” an account that appears to support Arora in his Avalanche token launches, agrees with Bigweapon’s theory while defending the publicly accused.
“He’s a good guy and did nothing wrong; just helped celebs to deploy coins,” Candy says.
Sources also have been scratching their heads for years on how Arora has used his real name and racked up so many allegations of impropriety without serious consequences.
The meme coin project said it intends to file a report to the Dubai police.
“We coordinate it with our lawyers to back it up with reasonable proof to have strong evidence against him, which we have,” they say.
week.
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