Pet Fish Commit Credit Card Fraud

A Japanese Youtuber devised an elaborate setup in his aquarium that allows his fish to play a certain Nintendo video game. It was all going swimmingly until the fish went off the reservation, so to speak, and charged a few items to the credit card linked to the game.

The Youtuber, who goes by the handle Mutekimaru (or sometimes Maurice), has a video camera watching his Siamese fighting fish, following their movements through the water with motion-detection tracking software. The setup uses the information to input video-game commands based on where the fish are positioned in the tank.

During a live stream of the fish playing “Pokémon Scarlet and Violet,” the video game crashed while Mutekimaru was out of the room, but the system continued to track the fish's movements. That’s when the fish (unwittingly?) activated the Nintendo Store, where users can purchase games and other downloadable content.

Purchase they did, but first they changed the user name, from Mutekimaru to “Rowawawa￥.” The yen symbol is a nice touch because then the fish charged 500 of them to the credit card (about $3.85). Then the fish downloaded something called an NS Emulator and purchased something else called a “golfing digital cosmetic.” (We don’t know what either of those things are.)

The crime spree was bad enough, but the fish also exposed the human’s credit card information to the thousands of people watching, which should make Mutekimaru think twice before leaving a live stream video unattended. Maurice says he contacted Nintendo, who rather graciously refunded the pilfered yen. 

Photo credit: Mutekimaru Channel / YouTube