Lots of people do it.
Plenty of raisings based on spurious concepts but yet to see one actually go full scam, essentially these people have bs programming jobs for a few years until they admit their product is not desirable to anyone.
Most will fail, but at the very least the world will get some open source software from it.
More than could be said for all the dodgy mining explorers I've invested in.
Sometime in 2020, you post about your incredible journey on your blog, say that all the money has been spent, and the project failed. Whoops, sorry guys.
At least, that's a legal way to take ICO money and run. It's not even fraud if you put some effort into delivering on what you promise.
Remember, in this scenario, you don't really have any knowledge or suspicion that they are just ripping you off.
That's still fraud, and could invite a criminal investigation and result in a criminal conviction. You could bet on the government not enforcing the laws, but that equally applies if token sales are banned.