Two such requests in the last month. I’ll tell you in a bit more detail what to do.
⠀
First. Of course, it’s stupid to allow this to happen at all. It surprises me personally that people who invest significant amounts into crypto (the latest victim talked about $500,000) don’t bother to thoroughly understand the security aspects of storing it.
⠀
With proper storage, your cryptocurrency savings can only be “seized” by old tried-and-true methods — cutting off fingers / putting a bag over your head / other similar methods of extracting information. No hackers, no government agencies, nobody will be able to take it from you if the process is organized correctly.
⠀
I won’t explain here how to store a seed phrase or which wallets to use for convenience when working with cryptocurrency. This article isn’t about that. My first thought — you simply can’t make yourself a victim with your own hands! That’s the first and most important thing.
⠀
Second. People come to me asking to track transactions, identify the final recipient. And yes, in some cases this really might work with a very lucky… very rare coincidence of several factors. For example, not long ago there was a case where a scammer withdrew part of the stolen funds through an exchange where they passed KYC (verification) two years ago. I thought until the last moment that the account was registered to a drop (a fake person), but it turned out that the criminal really screwed up badly and was identified thanks to the cooperation of a friendly exchange.
⠀
But! In most cases, there won’t be such luck. If I stole your crypto, I would run it through a “mixer,” swap it on a decentralized exchange into another blockchain, and then, just to be sure, exchange everything for Monero. And good luck finding any leads.
⠀
Third. Both people who came to me did not report to the police. In fact, this is the only thing that can help in this situation, since in fact a straightforward theft of a large amount has been committed (Part 4 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — up to 10 years imprisonment). And it is solved exactly like any other non-obvious crime — technical operational investigative measures (ORM) against suspected persons + a proper interrogation in the office after a tough arrest. Out of three “repairmen” (laptop repair, I remind you), one might crack. These aren’t hardened criminals, just IT guys completely unprepared for “unusual” treatment by criminal investigation operatives.
⠀
P.S.: According to colleagues, it’s like that now ☝️ unfortunately, there’s no one left to work and operatives are largely not what they used to be. So it’s certainly not a fact it will be as I wrote if there’s an “operative” with the 14th iPhone who came to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to make money or something else… but nevertheless, I’m sure there are still decent guys around.