The famous influencer “Hawk tuah girl,” said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated under scam charges after her memecoin disaster launch that she promoted.
The influencer whose real name is Haliey Welchthe said on May 21 episode of her “Talk Tuah” podcast that FBI showed up at her grandmother’s house looking to speak to her over the Hawk Tuah (HAWK) crypto token, which many crypto investors have called an exit scam.
After the coin launch, the feds came to granny’s house and knocked on her door, and she called me, having a heart attack, saying: ‘The FBI is here after you, what have you done?’
Welch explained she handed over her phone to the FBI and met with agents who asked her about everything related to her memecoin before they cleared her.
said on her podcast that the Securities and Exchange Commission also asked for her phone, and she sent it off “for two or three days” before she was cleared.
Unexpected Celebrity
The story began when she went viral after a YouTube interview where her words became very popular online. After her sudden rise to fame, the “Hawk Tuah” girl launched her own meme coin, hoping to make money from her internet popularity. The unexpected celebrity decided to launch the HAWK meme coin, named after her viral catchphrase, in early December 2024. But just after it started, the coin lost almost 90% of its value.
A company called Bubblemaps, which studies blockchain data, said that some insider wallets and traders bought large amounts of the coin right when it launched. Then, they sold it quickly for a profit, which cost a big loss.
As more people found out about these fast trades, trust in the coin disappeared. Many fans who supported the project felt tricked. Now, this failed coin is part of the investigation, and experts are asking whether there was any fraud involved.
Trusting the wrong people
Welch claimed that her knowledge was very little about crypto before the HAWK memecoin and blamed her trust in“the wrong people” for the failure launch of the token.
The Nashville native claimed a company, which she said she couldn’t name for legal reasons, was in full control of her X account, which posted videos of her promoting the memecoin. Even the videos she recorded herself were not fully her idea. Welch said someone gave her scripts to read on camera.
Welch made it clear that she only received a marketing fee and “did not make a dime from the coin itself,” she explained that the entire amount was spent on legal and PR costs.
At the same time, some people who bought the HAWK token took legal action in December. They said that Alex Schultz, the Tuah the Moon Foundation, which helped support the token, and a company called overHere Limited, which helped launch it, and its founder Clinton, sold the HAWK token without following the legal rules. Now, as the investigation continues, it’s still unclear who will be blamed, leaving an open question on the table: what this could mean for other cryptocurrencies promoted by internet influencers in the future?
