Topic: $3 Million Stolen in Crypto - Urgent advise needed (Read 143 times)

If you are going to carry $3 million in cryptocurrencies, then use a hardware wallet, not a phone.

And I will echo something else that the other people here have mentioned: Don't tell anyone that you have large amounts of money (unless you have armored security to protect you. But even then, I advise descretion).

I am reluctant to believe sobbing stories I read on forums, especially if they come from newbies, but what she tells sounds plausible.

I am sorry to tell you that I sincerely believe that you are not going to get anything, to begin with because for an investigation to be initiated, let alone a trial, you would have to prove that those bitcoins belonged to you and you will not be able to do it because you no longer have the private keys. You only have your word and that does not even start an investigation.

The moral I take from this is:

1) Don't tell people you have cryptocurrencies.
2) Put yourself in the worst case scenario and anticipate that they might try to steal them. For that case it is quite sensible to have a wallet to give to thieves both at home and if you escape to another country, and another much better hidden even in another location.

Bad choice. In a bear market it's bitcoin that always holds the most of its value. Altcoins get wasted. Someone who was involved since 2013 should know that.


Wallets should be secured by passwords. Did they force you to give it up?

Legal, therefore worth 0? It doesn't make sense.
In fact, it's not regulated, but not illegal. I understand they don't recognize it as property so they will not help you get it back. It's too difficult to understand for these people I guess, so they don't want anything to do with it.

Pretty normal in a country where the population speaks over 10 languages and you can easily disappear in the crowd.


Since you're in Pakistan where, I dare to say, things are done under the table, I don't think you'll be able to do much. You can file a complaint but they'll tell you that they don't recognize bitcoin and they aren't educated nor equipped to look for it.

That's the best course of action. You should get a lawyer and make him write to them. Maybe the casino will help knowing the funds someone gambled with were stolen. After all, the casino was cheated, used to launder money. It should pursue legal action with you, not against you.


Many businesses help track stolen money. Contact the casino before you start a court case.


We're talking about millions in stolen money here. I'd try.

Nobody will answer that. It can be months, but also can be years.

And I thought my life was hard in 2022. Sorry to hear that you're in this mess. Wish you guys used that paper wallet to move your coins right after your phones were stolen.

@OP you left out an important detail imo, where are you citizen of? If you're a citizen of Ukraine, you might be best finding a solicitor that's fled as a refugee (or for business) to a close neighbour of Ukraine. France and other EU countries might take it but there's less of a chance imo than someone who's able to take the case in or near Ukraine.

2. They might or might not do kyc, it all depends on the casino they sent the funds to but it's not too hard to find out (check the ToS or privacy policy).

3. Someone probably has power over the casino to do something - whether they do depends on a lot of things and they're probably more likely to not.

4&5 depends on how much help you can get and how well Investigations by governments are done for you (if they can be).

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How much do you trust whoever told you the 75% of funds were in a casino though too? Have they sent you that evidence? Do they want payment before they do (this is a fairly common scam technique)?

You need professionals to get your coins back. I heard about companies like https://www.group-ib.ru/
They work with the police of different countries and help the police to find robbers. I've heard good things about them. The company is Russian, but they have branches in many countries of the world and have good experience in combating cybercrime.

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But it is very strange to me that such an experienced cryptocurrency user kept 97% of his coins in his phone and did not use a hardware wallet for plausible deniability.

1) First I'm not 100% sure how authorities see cryptos in Pakistan, I know they don't recognize them as any kind of currency or assets so if nothing has changed you have little chance to make the police act on it, it will be like asking them to retrieve your coins in World of Warcraft! You can try filing a case on the higher authority or cybercrime units, whatever that branch is called in Pakistan, since you have relatives there wouldn't it be better to ask them to find a lawyer or a legal counselor?

2) You can make a claim against the casino but you have little chance of winning in this case, for once you don't know if they haven't passed KYC, it's quite easy to do with forged documents, or you could simply buy an already verified account, the court will most likely just find them in breach of keeping up with AML regulation but it's unlikely to award you damages on the expense of the casino if they can prove they acted in good faith. But again, you will have to prove the thieves were the ones playing with your funds!

3) The casino is not registered there because of tax, it's because of gambling licenses, normally one should take your case in Curacao, if not of course in Europe, but you're not an EU citizen, and furthermore, you have no case as it is against that casino. Without a court decision that would prove your funds were stolen from you and used there with your consent, any judge will dismiss this case.  Just think, how would you combat an accusation that gave those funds to a friend, the friend played and got the money, and now you're asking for them once more? Or how are you going to dispose of accusations you were the ones playing the casino?

4) As it is right now, with you having zero official proof of the theft, without police cooperation, chances are zero!
5) Irrelevant as per 4.

You only way to recover the funds is to make the police in Pakistan act and identify the robbers, then make the claim on the stolen coins in court, if the thieves have anything left or they have property or cash or any other thing of value under their name you can ask a legislator to seize that and auction it to make up for the damages.

I won't comment on the other things, but this one:
makes zero sense! ZERO!

My husband is a Pakistani and I am Ukrainian. We were based in Kherson, Ukraine; the first city occupied by Russian troops. Escape story is long. My husband was inches away from death. But he did some heroics and managed to get himself, me and our 3 years old daughter to safety. We traveled by road to Moldova. Spent a couple of days in Moldova, we drove to Romania. From Romania we flew to France. Not only we escaped ourselves, we managed to get 209 families afterwards, all of them women and children. My husband not only managed everything all by himself but also paid for all 209 families. Each evacuation cost us approx. $1200 per head. We moved at least 597 people. All financed by us. It was all covered on various tv channels such as Skye News, BBC, CNN and many more like this.
My husband family based in Pakistan, were extremely worried about us. We decided fly to Pakistan and spend 2-3 weeks there before we start rebuilding our life in Lisbon, Portugal. A week later my husband reported severe pain in hip muscle. It was a routine trip to a nearby international hospital. Doctor wasn’t happy about something. With basic tests for muscle and bone in thigh region, he asked for some other tests too.
Couple of days later we were called by the hospital. Doctor informed us that Hussain might have cancer and they will need more tests to confirm. Making it short within 2 weeks, multiple tests, multiple biopsies; it was confirmed that Hussain is a cancer patient. Treatment began.
The Crypto part:
   My husband has been buying and selling bitcoins for profit since 2013 and he is one of those people who were early winners from crypto, the first batch of crypto enthusiasts. Since we have been traveling through war zone, multiple countries and finally in Pakistan; Hussain had his Trust Wallet and Metamask in his phone as well as mine. So that even if we lose one phone, other phone will be there as a backup securing our crypto. We also had a paper version where I had half of seeds and Hussain had other half. We had crypto of worth 3 million dollars approx. We initially had bitcoins, but since the value was shrinking, we divided the whole fortune into multiple currencies, mostly Eth.
   While we had to go Karachi to see the possibilities of surgery at a hospital there, we were stopped by 2 gun men on a motorcycle. On a busy street of Karachi, they kept as standing on gun point for 5 minutes. They were sent by someone who knew we had crypto in phone. A lot of family members and friends asked about crypto and how we kept it safe during our run from Ukraine.
These 2 guys, removed our apple IDs and passwords from the store. Now we are standing in a city that we were both traveling for first time. Me being a white woman from East Europe, usually stared upon when I go out casually, by every Pakistani men. My husband although from Pakistan had spent 14 years out of Pakistan living in Europe.
We made the police reports and all that, but it didn’t take us long knowing that crypto in our phone was gone to other wallets. We informed police about all this. They refused our claim of bitcoins, saying that they are responsible to find phones and catch criminals. They don’t care about software installed in the phone. I tried to explain and I was quickly told by a senior police officer that bitcoin is legal to buy, sell or hold in Pakistan therefore it has 0 market value.
Police was never able to identify or catch those robbers. That was 97% of money we had in the world. It was gone. We were supposed to travel, establish a new life in a new city. Most importantly, we needed money for cancer. Being a very rare type of cancer, the diagnosis and treatment was estimated at $200,000 approx. We were lost. My husband didn’t give up. He hired some blockchain expert, paid him some fee with duties to identify if funds landed into any major exchange or if any address can be connected to any registered business.
While we almost forgot about it, struggling with cancer and trouble with bills. Due to lack of finances, husband’s cancer got out of control. He at this moment is probably 8-10 weeks from dying with options that we have to fix him are unaffordable. Despite charitable during escape from Ukraine, we couldn’t catch attention of any major outlet who will help us with crowdfunding. Being in Pakistan also took options of gofundme etc. Moreover my husband was declared person of interest by the Russian occupying troops in Kherson. Going public with his whereabouts anymore wasn’t a good idea. He has lost hope and he is just ready to die, even refuses to continue the treatment we can afford.
2 days ago the person my husband hired to find some clue about funds final destination, out of nowhere sent an email asking for zoom meeting as he has been able to trace down things.
We did that immediately. He mentioned that funds have been sent to a lot of place, spreading into tens of wallets. What he found interesting was that there were a 2 addresses at the end that received around 75% of these funds. It took him a very very long time identifying the connection between the addresses. The addresses belonged to a famous crypto casino. I will not mention name here. We hired another person who confirmed the same information.
It is hard to believe that these guys robbed us for our bitcoins and ended up gambling with it. They probably sent them to this casino, played a bit and then probably moved them out. The standard technique of whitening the black money. The
I have few questions from people who have knowledge crypto and laws related to the scenario:
Q1.   Police refuses to take the complain of bitcoins, how do we legally proceed with it?
Q2.   Casino being a business should do KYC accepting that large transfers. Since the stolen money landed in casino’s account, our claim should be against them?
Q3.   The casino registered in Curacao, like every other business finding tax heavens. But Casino is providing services in Europe as well as in Pakistan. In case of claim against Casino, where we should bring a legal case?
Q4.   What do you think of end results? Do you think if it is worth spending all that money on legal charges etc to get funds back?
Q5.   How long will it take?

I am desperate. 2022 has been a disaster. We have survived a war and stayed in the middle of war ground for 34 days. All this just to find out that we will still lose a family member because of cancer, just because we couldn’t afford to pay for treatment and with millions of dollars stolen.

Any advise will be helpful.

Thanks

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Victoria