Topic: Getting Scammed: Go to Police or Cut Losses and Move On? - page 3. (Read 3452 times)

I know it's spilled milk, but why didn't you take all the cash, but just 3 bills? I mean there were 3 of them and it was their country, they knew the hotel you were staying in, it was impossible for you to run with the money. If I saw a situation like that I'd tell them to give me the money and accompany me to a currency exchange and once the cash is checked, we'll go back to my hotel lobby where they'll get the coins.
Swapping is the oldest trick in the book, street peddlers were doing it with jewelry and watches all the time swapping real one for fakes and sometimes even stealing your wallet in the process

Do you know any of their names? If you were in a hotel lobby they should be video footage from the cameras.
If you want to get your money back go to the police, tell them to get footage from the hotel, describe those guys and the car they were in and of course tell them the value of coins you were exchanging. If they get caught you'll help all their future victims, because they won't stop with this scam, they'll keep going.

How much did you lose?

Situations like this is very dicey and for me, I would drop it and move on because of the fact that you are a foreigner and the same time it will take series of explanation police officers to understand what you are trying to pass accross, another is to get the court order to have access to the footage and all this costs will be on you which you are also not sure your money will come back. In all, you have learnt your lessons in which if you ask anybody including myself, we get to learn everyday and most times by experience. Count your losses and move on is the next thing now.

Wow. You should have used an escrow service

I doubt the police would do anything except maybe try to fine/charge you. They probably won't find the other guys. They will probably assume money laundering/tax evasion/drugs/etc.

You could prove the BTC wallet is yours so long as you have the transaction saved, but it could still get really ugly.

While I'm not an EU citizen, my opinion... suck it up and live with it. But also I let others know your story. Find a 3rd party escrow service you can recommend/use.

Hmm... As a foreigner, trying to navigate the legal systems in another country might be tough. And if the hope of getting your coins back is slim, I would suggest just cut your losses and move on.

BTW it's less about getting the money back and more about trying to make the world a better place (but I don't want to risk my freedoms at the same time).

Someone in Europe messaged me through the Abra App to buy BTC. He sent me a pic of the money with the date and my name in the picture as proof. After he reassured me we could make the transaction in a bank, I told him I could only go to Europe for a 50% fee. He agreed.
Since Abra is KYC compliant I assumed making a transaction over $10k would be OK.
Then when I arrived, he told me to meet with his "brother", as he knew more about BTC.
3 guys met me at my hotel lobby and dismissed the idea of taking all the money to the bank and said that the bank would create a lot of problems walking in with a lot of cash.
With a few bills they asked me to take randomly from the cash, I walked in a FX exchange with 1 guy (while the other 2 were waiting in their car with the rest of the cash) to verify the bills were indeed valid.
We then went back to my hotel lobby and I sent the BTC to his blockchain.info wallet address (he said he wanted to use his Blockchain wallet and not Abra and I figured I could just fill out the Form 8300 later instead) and then they gave me the bag of cash.
Later in my hotel room I discovered that the cash had been swapped out for fake money (perhaps in their car at the FX exchange). FYI I don't have a lot of street smart.

If I go to the police could I get AML charges on me? Especially since I haven't filled out the 8300 form yet. And I just found out here in Italy the legal transaction sizes without ID is very small (like 3k). Lastly all I have is phone numbers (which could be disposable) and possibly security cam footage from my hotel.

Thanks