Some of these platforms are clones of a real brand, differing by a character in the domain. Others are invented outright, with a corporate identity assembled from a registry entry in a jurisdiction that does not supervise the activity. Both work the same way, because the deception is not in the branding — it is in the fact that no market exists on the other side of your trades.
The consequence people find hardest. Your balance was never held in an account: it was a number written next to your name. The money that existed is the money you sent, and it left the moment it arrived. Everything the platform tells you about releasing the balance is a request for more of the first kind of money in exchange for more of the second.
Why the fees keep arriving. There is no balance to release, so every demand is simply the next sale. Some operations produce official-looking letters from a regulator or a bank to support the request; those are made in the same place the trading screen was. No genuine exchange has ever needed an external payment to let you withdraw your own funds.
Not advice on where to trade — we are investigators, not advisers. These are the checks that would have failed in the cases we have worked, and every one of them is done away from the platform's own website.
A regulator's register is public and searchable; a number that returns nothing there, or returns a different company, is the end of the conversation.
Install links, test-build invitations and direct downloads bypass the only review step in the chain.
A personal account manager writing to you privately is a sales structure, not a compliance one.
Convenient for laundering, unnecessary for an exchange with real custody.
Fees invented at the exit are the scheme's business model.
A recent registration in a jurisdiction that does not supervise this activity, an address shared with hundreds of companies, no verifiable people.
The same test applies to us. Our registry entries — trade licence 1135542, register No. 1876962, Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry 439332 — are published in full on credentials, and the ten-point check on our verification page is written so that it can be used against any firm, including this one.
We follow this on Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron, BSC, Polygon and Solana, where every movement is permanently recorded. We do not work with Monero, because it cannot be traced, and we say so at the first call rather than accepting the case and billing the attempt.
What works in your favour. Unlike a rug pull, there is usually a counterparty somewhere: the operation needs banking, payment rails or exchange accounts to convert deposits into money it can use. Multiple victims of the same platform also make one stronger case rather than several weak ones — the addresses overlap, and so does the evidence. We flag stolen transactions to AML providers within four hours of intake, a freeze request to an exchange takes 2–4 days once filed, and the formal block that follows a police report adds 2–3 days. Where a stablecoin issuer is involved, the response to a freeze request typically arrives in 24–62 hours.
What works against you. Time, and the fee stage. These schemes are built to keep the victim paying for months, and every month of that is a month in which the deposits are being cashed out. Cases that arrive while the platform is still asking for a release fee are in a much better position than cases that arrive after it goes silent.
Return, when it comes, follows the ordinary timetable: 6–9 months from an exchange; for USDT through the issuer, a first payout at 12–20 months including a three-month lock, with full repayment around 24 months in quarterly instalments; 6–36 months for complex or multi-jurisdictional cases. A freeze is measured in days and a repayment is not — anyone answering this question in days is describing the freeze. Full timings are on our data page.
Our published figure is 68% success rate on accepted cases · measured over the past 24 months. We decline cases where we see no realistic prospect of recovery, which in this category usually means the deposits were cashed out long ago. That answer is free and comes on the first call.
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center has issued repeated advisories about fictitious law firms contacting crypto scam victims and offering to recover funds for an up-front fee. Between February 2023 and February 2024 alone, victims re-targeted this way reported losses of more than $9.9 million. Both advisories are public: PSA240624 and PSA250813.
This applies to us too. We do not cold-message victims, we are not affiliated with any government agency, and no agency refers cases to us. If someone approaches you in our name, it is not us — report it to IC3. Before engaging anyone, including us, run the ten-point check on our verification page.
There is nothing there to recover. What can be worked is the money that left your wallet or account.
Nobody can. What exists is a freeze after the funds reach a service with an operator, and a return after that.
Card and bank losses run through your bank and the police; that is not our field and we will say so rather than take the case.
It cannot be traced, so we decline rather than bill the attempt.
Outside what we can work effectively.
Non-negotiable.
Declined on the first call.
Forensics and the evidence base are ours; police reports, freeze filings and court applications are carried out by partner law firms in the relevant jurisdiction.
Recovery is decided by courts, exchanges and token issuers.
Related: all six types of crypto theft and their recoverability · romance and long-con investment scams · wallet drainers · how a recovery case runs end to end.
The checks that work are outside the platform, not inside it. A real venue is licensed somewhere, and the licence number can be looked up in the regulator's own register rather than on the company's website; its corporate identity matches that entry; and its app comes from the ordinary app stores rather than from a link somebody sent you. Inside the platform, everything can be drawn: balances, order books, charts, support staff, even a certificate. If the only evidence that a firm is regulated is published by that firm, there is no evidence.
Response within two business hours. Confidential. Success-fee terms on recovery work.