§ 01The brief
The client had sold her rental property and moved most of the proceeds into Bitcoin on the advice of a woman she met online. The trading site showed her balance growing past $2 million. A 'withdrawal fee' request made her son suspicious.
§ 02What I did
- 1.
Traced 31 deposits from her exchange account through the scam's addresses, a peel chain and two consolidation wallets.
- 2.
Found two regulated exchanges that received $296,000 between them, and confirmed the rest went to an unhosted wallet cluster.
- 3.
Filed the CCS report and sent each exchange the tracing report through its law-enforcement channel.
§ 03The outcome
Both exchanges froze the accounts, holding $296,000 in total. Return is going through a law-enforcement seizure. The remaining funds could not be reached.