RESOURCES
Read this first.
A working library for victims, advisors, and anyone trying to make a chartable next move out of a loss event.
Where do you fit?
I’ve just been scammed
The first 24 hours matter most. Read the playbook before you do anything else — including responding to anyone who has reached out claiming to help.
First 24-hour playbook → RESEARCHI’m researching a platform
If you have not yet sent funds to a platform, the red-flag library below covers the patterns that surface in the cases that reach our desk.
Red-flag library → ADVISORI’m advising a victim
Civil counsel, family advisors, accountants. The directory of regulators and the glossary will orient you fast on what’s chartable and what’s not.
Regulator directory →The first 24 hours: a playbook.
What you do in the first day after a crypto loss event determines what is recoverable. The six steps below are the standing recommendation of the Cointiverse cartographer’s desk — do them in order, do them yourself, and only then engage a forensic firm.
Stop sending. Now.
If a platform is asking for “release fees,” “tax payments,” “verification deposits,” or anything else after your initial loss — do not send. Every additional payment makes recovery harder, not easier. The only legitimate next step is forensic review.
Preserve evidence in this exact order.
Transaction hashes for every transfer. Wallet addresses involved. Screenshots of platform UI, account balance displays, withdrawal failures. All correspondence with the platform — chats, emails, phone records. Any KYC documents you submitted. Do not delete anything, even if the platform pressures you to.
Document timeline + amounts in writing.
While memory is fresh: write a sequential timeline of every interaction, every deposit, every withdrawal attempt, every promise made by the platform or any individual associated with it. Note the dates, amounts, and the platform-provided IDs for each transaction.
Do not pay any “recovery service” upfront.
This is the most important rule. The recovery-scam industry specifically targets fresh victims. Legitimate forensic firms charge for the chain-mapping work or recovery contingency — never for the “promise” of recovery. If anyone demands cryptocurrency payment, asks for your seed phrase, or guarantees a specific recovery amount, they are scamming you.
File the foundational reports.
In your jurisdiction: file with your country’s primary fraud or financial-crime authority. The directory below lists the right agency by country. Filing creates a paper trail that downstream actions (civil claims, exchange freeze requests) reference. Do this within the first week even if you intend to engage a forensic firm.
Open a case for forensic review.
Once your evidence is preserved and reports are filed, open a forensic case. The cartographer will triage your case under NDA within 24 hours. There is no fee for the initial review and no obligation if the trail is exhausted.
RED FLAG LIBRARY
The patterns the cartographer’s desk sees most often.
A red flag is not proof of fraud. It is a chartable inconsistency the desk has seen recur across many case files. The four pattern groups below cover an estimated 80% of victim intakes.
Anyone reaching out unsolicited offering recovery
- Cold contact via DM, WhatsApp, or comment under a scam-related post
- Demands upfront fees, “deposits,” or “verification” payments before work begins
- Requests your seed phrase or private keys for any reason
- Guarantees a specific recovery amount or timeline
- Operates only through messaging apps; no published office, no NDA, no engagement letter
- Claims to be a “white-hat hacker” who can break into the scammer’s wallet
The trading-mentor or romance-into-crypto pattern
- Initial contact via dating app, social media, or wrong-number text leading to long conversation
- Mentor figure introduces a “private” trading platform after weeks of relationship-building
- Initial small deposits show profit on platform UI; encouraged to deposit more
- Withdrawal attempts trigger “tax payments,” “verification deposits,” account freezes
- Platform support always available before deposit, evasive after withdrawal request
Recognizing the standard high-pressure platform
- Domain registered within the last 12-18 months, hidden WHOIS
- Regulatory claims (FCA, CySEC, ASIC) that don’t match the actual regulator’s database
- “Account manager” assigned to pressure deposit increases
- Withdrawal minimums or “VIP-tier” requirements that scale with deposits
- Customer reviews concentrated in 6-month window with similar wording patterns
Yield platforms with built-in exit plans
- Smart contract source code is non-verified or copy-paste from another project
- Admin functions are concentrated in a single key with mint/freeze/withdraw powers
- Total Value Locked grows fast, then withdrawal pause precedes drainage
- Anonymous founders or unverifiable team profiles
- Outsized APY promises (often 100%+) with no clear yield source
Recovery scams compound the original loss.
An estimated 30-40% of crypto-fraud victims are subsequently targeted by a recovery scam — a fake “service” that promises to retrieve the original loss and disappears with upfront fees. This is the single most preventable way for losses to grow.
A legitimate forensic firm will:
- Provide a published office address, NDA, and written engagement letter
- Accept payment only via standard business channels (bank transfer, card — never crypto)
- Refuse seed phrases or private keys under any circumstances
- Refuse to guarantee specific recovery percentages
- Triage cases honestly — including telling you the trail is exhausted
If anyone reaching out to you fails any of these tests, they are not a recovery firm. Do not engage. Cointiverse maintains an active case file index of confirmed recovery-scam operators — if you’ve already paid one, the wallet they collected from you is often more recoverable than the original loss.
Forensic glossary
A working vocabulary for victims and advisors. The terms here are the ones that recur across case files, regulator filings, and engagement letters.
- Chain Mapping
- The forensic visualization of fund flows across blockchain transactions. Cointiverse’s signature deliverable; produces a courtroom-grade map of laundering routes.
- Cluster Identification
- Grouping multiple wallet addresses controlled by the same entity using transaction-pattern analysis. Foundation of all on-chain attribution.
- Mixer / Coinjoin
- Service that combines transactions from multiple users to obscure individual fund flows. Tornado Cash, Wasabi, Whirlpool. Detection is forensically tractable but not always full-resolution.
- Bridge Contract
- Smart contract that moves assets between chains (e.g., Ethereum to Polygon). Common laundering tool; bridge transfers are a high-value forensic checkpoint.
- Off-Ramp
- The point where on-chain funds become fiat (bank account, card payment). Almost always passes through a regulated exchange — the strongest recovery handle.
- KYC Unmasking
- Compliant subpoena or court-order procedure to learn the identity behind an exchange-deposit address. Cointiverse pursues this through formal legal channels only.
- Compliance Freeze
- Voluntary or court-ordered hold on funds at an exchange, requested with on-chain evidence. The fastest practical route to recovery for tier-1-jurisdiction cases.
- Peel Chain
- Laundering technique where small amounts are repeatedly “peeled” from a main wallet to obscure the trail. Distinctive pattern; cartographer-detectable.
- Drainer Signature
- The on-chain pattern produced by a specific wallet-drainer-as-a-service operator. Once identified, applies across many victim cases.
- Triage Verdict
- Cointiverse’s three-state assessment of a case at intake: chartable, partially chartable, or exhausted. Issued within 24 hours, no fee.
- Recovery Posture
- The cartographer’s estimate of how much of a loss is realistically recoverable, given the chain map and jurisdictional handles available.
- Engagement Fee
- Flat fee for the chain-mapping deliverable. Refundable if the cartographer cannot identify actionable handles. Separate from the contingency fee on actual recoveries.
Where to file: regulator + agency directory
The right first filing depends on your jurisdiction and the nature of the loss. Below is the Cointiverse desk’s standing reference. Filing creates the paper trail that downstream actions reference; do this within the first week even if you intend to engage a forensic firm.
United States
- IC3 — Internet Crime Complaint Center (FBI). Primary US-victim filing point. ic3.gov
- SEC — for ICO, securities-fraud, and investment-scheme cases. sec.gov/tcr
- CFTC — for derivatives, futures, and certain commodity-related crypto cases. cftc.gov/complaint
- FTC — for consumer-fraud reporting. reportfraud.ftc.gov
- State Attorney General — consumer-protection unit in your state.
United Kingdom
- Action Fraud — UK national fraud reporting. actionfraud.police.uk
- FCA — Financial Conduct Authority, for regulated/unregulated platform claims. fca.org.uk
- NCA — National Crime Agency for organized-crime referrals.
European Union
- Country financial regulator — BaFin (Germany), AMF (France), CONSOB (Italy), CNMV (Spain), AFM (Netherlands), CySEC (Cyprus).
- Europol — for cross-border organized crypto crime.
- Local police — required for civil-action evidence in most EU jurisdictions.
Canada
- Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre — primary reporting. antifraudcentre.ca
- RCMP — for criminal referral.
- Provincial Securities Commission — OSC, AMF Quebec, BCSC.
Australia
- Scamwatch (ACCC) — scamwatch.gov.au
- ASIC — for unlicensed-platform reports.
- AFP / state police — criminal referral.
Asia-Pacific
- Singapore: MAS (financial), SPF (criminal).
- Hong Kong: SFC, HKPF.
- Japan: FSA, prefectural police.
- UAE: SCA, Dubai Police e-crime unit.
Frequently asked — victim edition
Seven questions the cartographer’s desk receives most often. Honest answers, no pressure.
Should I pay the platform’s promised “release fee” to get my funds out?
No. This is the standard escalation pattern of fraudulent platforms. Once you’ve requested a withdrawal, the platform invents reasons to hold the funds — tax payments, verification deposits, anti-money-laundering fees — each requiring more deposits from you. None of those payments will produce a withdrawal. The original deposits are gone; additional payments make the loss bigger, not smaller.
A “recovery service” already contacted me. Should I respond?
Almost certainly not. Legitimate forensic firms do not cold-contact victims via DM or WhatsApp; they are sought out by victims, civil counsel, or referrals. If a recovery offer arrived unsolicited and demands upfront crypto payment, it is itself the second scam. The good news: those operators frequently use exchange-deposit wallets that are more recoverable than the original perpetrator’s. Cointiverse handles recovery-scam-recovery cases regularly.
How long do I have before recovery becomes impossible?
Speed matters, but not in the way scammers tell you. Compliance freeze requests are most effective in the first 30-60 days. Civil claims and regulator filings can be productive months or years later. Cases more than five years old are usually exhausted — the chain remembers, but the practical recovery levers fade. The honest timeline: open a forensic case as soon as evidence is preserved, ideally within 90 days.
Will my bank refund this since it was a scam?
Sometimes — under specific consumer-protection regimes (UK CRM Code, EU PSD2, US Reg E for unauthorized transfers). The bank will not generally refund authorized transfers you made yourself, even under fraudulent inducement. The exception is where the bank failed in fraud-detection duties or where coordinated chargeback procedures apply. A forensic case file substantially strengthens any bank-refund claim.
Is my case too small for forensic review?
The cartographer reviews every intake regardless of loss size. Triage is free. Whether engagement makes economic sense depends on the chartable handles, the jurisdiction of the off-ramp, and the contingency math — but you do not pay anything to find that out. Cases as small as $5,000 have been recovered where the off-ramp landed at a cooperative exchange.
Can you recover crypto from a wallet I lost the seed phrase for?
No. Cointiverse does not recover lost seed phrases, brute-force private keys, or “decrypt” wallets. Anyone offering that is misrepresenting how cryptography works. Our work is forensic cartography of fraudulent transfers — tracing where stolen funds went and recovering them through compliance and legal channels.
Will my case be made public?
Only with your written consent. By default, all case files remain in our private forensic library — anonymized for internal pattern-recognition use, never published. Where consent is granted, anonymized case writeups appear on the Investigations page; even then, names, dates, and identifying details are withheld.
READY FOR FORENSIC REVIEW
Open a case. The cartographer triages within 24 hours.
No fee for the initial review. NDA-backed. We tell you whether the trail is chartable before any engagement fee.