ESEA Advanced champion allegedly defrauded thousands from teammates

Magic School Bus won ESEA Advanced Season 42 in a dominant fashion last night, earning promotion to ESL Challenger League Season 43 following a 3-1 win over Villainous Union. However, for one of the team's players, Andrew "VulcaN" Dominguez, the celebration was short-lived as the 22-year-old player was faced with accusations of stealing $3,000 from his friends and teammates by Connor "jermanji" Buckles.

Dust2.us has investigated these claims, with eight players coming forward to accuse VulcaN of borrowing in-game knives and cash totaling around $4,650 from them before a series of outlandish circumstances left him unable to repay the debt.

Current BHOP player Brett "brett" Rhein told Dust2.us that he allegedly lent VulcaN $1,500 four months ago due to VulcaN claiming he needed the money to urgently pay back a friend. When pressed on why VulcaN was unable to find the money on his own, he told brett that his parents locked him out of his bank account, leaving him short on funds.

Despite the somewhat outlandish premise, brett said he wasn't worried about lending VulcaN the money because they had been friends for some time and he was under the impression that VulcaN's family was quite wealthy. brett says in hindsight he regrets being naïve, but after months of VulcaN claiming that he would be repaid in short order only for an excuse to consistently come up, he's lost hope of being repaid.

ESEA Advanced player Neil "flux" K. puts forward a similar story of being taken advantage of by being too trusting of VulcaN. flux told Dust2.us that he crossed paths with VulcaN while roster riding on Snakes Den during ESEA Advanced Season 41. Around that time, VulcaN asked flux if he could borrow his Phase 4 Butterfly Knife Doppler, a skin worth around $1,500 on CSGO Exchange, for a week. When the time came to return the knife, VulcaN alleged that his Steam account had been hacked, leaving him unable to return the knife. VulcaN at the time promised he would buy the knife back for flux, however after five months of waiting, flux is comparatively skeptical of VulcaN's promise to make amends.

flux provided a number of screenshots to Dust2.us showing that the skin was traded to VulcaN on May 3rd, 2022 before the knife was seemingly passed along to another account on May 21st.

Dust2.us independently verified that the account flux sent the Butterfly Knife to is VulcaN's primary Steam account which is tied to his FACEIT account and the ESEA account he used for the majority of his career. In ESEA Advanced Season 42, VulcaN seemingly started using a new ESEA account that is connected to a a Steam account that is trade banned.

Algerian-American streamer Adam "Loop" Bahriz also alleges that VulcaN borrowed an expensive knife from him months ago and has made no effort to repay him for it. Loop alleges that while playing with VulcaN in ESEA Main Season 39, he asked Loop if he could borrow his Falchion Knife Slaughter, a skin worth around $300, with Loop electing to lend him the skin due to figuring he could trust his teammate while also admitting it was cool to play with an FPL player.

In another outlandish occurrence, when the time came to return the knife to Loop, VulcaN said he was unable to due to the account actually belonging to a "pro Overwatch player" and as a result, VulcaN couldn't access the 2FA code to be able to trade the knife back to Loop. In a similar story to brett and flux's circumstances, Loop says VulcaN promised multiple times to return the knife or repay Loop but it never materialized to anything substantive before VulcaN allegedly blocked Loop.

Dust2.us verified that the Steam account Loop sent the knife to is the same account flux sent his Butterfly Knife to.

Andrew "vein" Lindeman also claims that VulcaN stole a Talon Knife Tiger Tooth after a long history of the two players trading and sharing knives with each other. vein claims that VulcaN used a spat during ESEA Advanced Season 33 playoffs when they played together back in 2020 where vein told a rival team to pick Vertigo against VulcaN's squad due to be cut ahead of playoffs as an excuse to not return the knife. The Talon Knife, which has yet to be returned, is currently valued at around $650 on CS:GO Stash.

This saga continues with Armen "armen" Fesliyan alleging that VulcaN "borrowed" $100 from his monthly salary as a player due to needing money to buy skins but having issues with his account. armen says VulcaN borrowed the $100 five months ago and that he has made no substantive progress in repaying him.

John "yohan" Lee puts forward a similar story, alleging that VulcaN asked him one day on Venmo for $200. yohan says he thought nothing of sending VulcaN the money as he believed they were good friends but grew suspicious when VulcaN never repayed him and kept making excuses about why he couldn't repay the debt.

Stanley "calamity" Chiu's allegation, which takes place more recently, focuses on VulcaN's alleged intent to attend Fragadelphia 17 with calamity's team for the event Argon. calamity claims that VulcaN expressed interest in attending the event, however he was unable to pay for the flight to the event, so calamity lent VulcaN $190 on the proviso that he would attend Fragadelphia 17, where the team had a direct invite due to circuit points. However, calamity alleges that VulcaN ultimately backed out of attending the event, but never returned the money he was lent for the flight. calamity provided Dust2.us with a picture of the PayPal transaction to VulcaN.

The final person allegedly defrauded by VulcaN, Rylan "FE4R" Flynn, tells Dust2.us that his situation revolves around Fragadelphia 17 Fullerton 2, with VulcaN asking FE4R for $100 to cover entry to the event. FE4R gave him this money on the basis that VulcaN would repay him with the prizepool for the event, where Hustler's University finished in second place, ultimately netting $2,000.

About a month later, VulcaN returned to FE4R asking if he could borrow another $100 to pay back former Bad News Bears player Saad "Pluto" Siraj for an undisclosed expense. VulcaN claimed he would cover these two expenses by giving FE4R his portion of the Fragadelphia 17 Fullerton 2 winnings, something that never happened.

Dust2.us confirmed with Pluto that VulcaN has never owed him money and he was unaware of this supposed exchange.

Considering the breadth of VulcaN's former friends and teammates who have come forward claiming he stole money from them in what is essentially a confidence scam, there are serious concerns about a player continuing to compete in North America at the highest domestic level in ECL.

Dust2.us reached out to VulcaN for comment with the player not responding the request by the time of publication.

We also asked VulcaN's Magic School Bus teammate Chris "Slash" Petersen for his thoughts on the allegations and whether VulcaN has a future on the team. He told Dust2.us:

Of course he has a future on the team. I don’t know much about these allegations other than it’s a he said she said type moment. I’ve been told that both parties have skins/money from the opposite party.

Should VulcaN's place on the team withstand the allegations against him, he will be competing in ESL Challenger League Season 43 when it begins on October 25th.