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

I don't think that even police will be able to help you in that case. Bitcoin is still not known widely and even if you have filed a charge against them, the case will have no progress because I believe that the laws that involving crypto is still in a discussions stage so it's better to ignore it for now.

First of all , if you're not street smart , then you need to be street smart now . This is not the way blockchain works . I am pretty sure you are new to the  world of blockchain that is why you put your trust on someone who is a total stranger . In this case , i would highly recommend you to cut the losses and move on . There is no way you can get your money back until and unless you find that man who stole it from you ( which is practically not possible in case of theft ) .
You can get trapped in a foreign land for money laundering or illegal use of money if you complaint about this to police . Because look , the amount is highly suspect-able for the law .
I think you got your life lesson now , you wouldn't fall for such bait in the future .         

I am sure that if the government decides to legalize the use of cryptocurrencies it will bring more harm and losses than cases of theft of coins are scams. I use bitcoin because they don't trust their government. It is only natural that I didn't trust law enforcement agencies which serve the government. I personally ensure their safety and bear responsibility for it.

If government already legalize bitcoin, you can ask the cyber police to after them but most government  still not legalize bitcoin because it can be use for criminal activity.
My suggestion especially in crypto world : TRUST NO ONE !

I know this is a bad suggestion but I think you just need to forget it. Just be  careful next time because we still need to go to mass adoption so our government can pass a bill that will protect our cryptocurrency rights and sue
 crypto criminals.

In my country the police are not involved in such crimes even if it is Fiat. All banking transactions is too classified. It is easier to refuse to help to say that the money lost in the unknown direction than to admit to the register of transactions by unauthorized persons. Suddenly happen to find transactions of politicians. Bitcoin transactions even more difficult. Finding cheaters no chance. Don't waste time.

Well, you have a good point right there. But just so you know, it is not always about money. Sometimes it pays to do the right thing to make a difference. If we all think the same way as you do, and in effect we are always complacent and forgiving about the wrongful deed of others, perhaps, we make our society always prone to said abuses because these criminals always go unpunished. You are therefore creating a stigma that we should not waste time on evils that are rampant in our society IF WE HAVE MONEY instead of standing up for yourself and going after the abuser to teach the society a lesson that will stand for generation to generation.

Hmm do you really what to go to the hassle of expaling to police what the hell you were doing flying into there county to sell 10k worth of bitcoin undeclared  .Like someone said previous they might try to charge you with money laundering tax evasion ..You have to ask yourself do you really what law enforcement asking you how much bitcoin you have and what taxes you been paying on it ?

So my opoinio if this was your last 10k  and all the money you have then yes go to the police  but you 100k /millions worth of bitcoin still on you it not worth the hassle  .Take it as a expensive lesson

Bitcoin not being legalized has no meaning in this case. If it concerns theft, or getting scammed, the deed remains the same as if it would have happened with fiat. It all depends on how much evidence you have access to.

If there is no evidence at all, even with fiat you'll be left aside with nothing. In the last years there has been so much scamming going on (not just referring to crypto), that people don't report things anymore if it's a small amount.

All due to the lack of interest from the side of the authorities. That's why in online marketplaces people stick to paying with PayPal and then through the option goods and services, which gives them a piece of mind.

At least PayPal does something well in this regard.

If it's happen on my country, I'm afraid that police can't do anything because bitcoin still not being legalized at my place.
So when you decide to invest bitcoin , it means that you're aware the risk and it's all your responsible for your own bitcoin !

Nah. I wouldn't go to the police mate, just move on because its really hard to prove anything unless you get their real names. Heck you are even lucky that they didn't do anything stupid to you. Its really hard to trust anyone today, specially with the huge amount of money they got from you. Just deal with it and let this be a lessons moving forward. In our country, this is just a common modus being pull through by a lot of those bad guys and its not easily not to fall for this trap either because they have a sweet tongue and you will really fall for them and believe they everything they say its true until you found out that you have been duped.

With this kind of scenario just to be safe just cut your losses and move on, it will be more risky
if you will go to the police and inform them on what happened to you specially if you are from
foreign land and as you said there is a limit for cash transactions from that country.

Just take it as a lesson so that in the future you are not going to commit the same mistake and
thank you for sharing it on this forum at least other members would be aware of that king of MO for scamming.

If you experience scam i think move on but if there's a way to retrieve your items or money then do it.First to avoid scam here you need to search if the person or the site is already trusted but if you have no choice so take the risk.There's a lot of trusted person here or site so i think taking the risk is an option only so i think do the safe like communicate in trusted person here

My opinion is that doing it is useless. The police will not even look for cheaters. Until bitcoin is not recognized currency it will be very difficult to prove in court that this asset has value. It seems to me that it makes no sense to waste time going to the police. Make conclusions for themselves not to repeat such mistakes in the future and move on.

i think when you get scammed it's better to go to the authorities, because by doin this you can help the authorities identify the online scammers and that will make their job more easier, not only that you helped youself but also you helped your community making the world a better place,

Just due to the nature of this transaction, you should cut your loss. You won't have much luck trying to explain your situation.technical details to the police without bring yourself some suspicion.

The only outcomes that I foresee here are either the police do nothing, or they go after you for any of a myriad of obscure laws they like to use to hassle crypto people. Cut your loses and move on

It is 100% fraud. No matter the government recognizes bitcoins or not you cheated. Under the guise of the money you give the paper. It's a Scam in any country. I think you definitely need to go to the police. Now on the streets of many cameras and possible fraud can be tracked. Proceed and be careful next time.

Maybe what he's asking is, if it's legal for a foreigner to transact with more than 10 grand.

It is clearly a scam seems that you had a deal for 100 grand worth of bitcoin since the cash should be placed inside a bag. 10 grand is just 1 bundle of $100 bills and no need to put it inside a bag.

If you really lost a lot of coins and it is legal in Europe for this trade then better get the cops and try to have it resolved. That is a huge amount that you lost. As you said CCTV on the hotel will be useful. Those criminals might victimized other people in the future.

Move on. You learned your lesson and you will just waste your time and expenses if you continue chasing them. It won't be long before they get jailed because I know that they will still operate these schemes. Someone will make them pay.

That's an eye-opener, hope anyone who read your story have learned the lesson for not making that move in the future and don't wait to be the one posting it. If I have been the one on that terrible situation I will be hesitant to live my country again for the same purpose. We can't do about the funds and the enforcement to be on your side just dont do it again and be careful next time.

Curious, anyone know why the BTC is moving to a smaller and smaller amount on the blockchain? Does this mean it's being sold slowly for cash 

Original address of the con artist is 1DY7qNGa9q4jBCxzDTbNni7NgwwWLz2Bww. I sent 3 transactions (totaling 16.48).

Milan, Italy
Here's another recent Bitcoin story of someone being lured to Milan  : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/05/british-model-kidnapped-milan-captor-tried-auction-online-for300000/

To be honest, op has very little chance of recovering their funds at this point, statistically. But when you lose this much money to misadventure, it is usually worth the opportunity cost to at least try everything in your power to get your money back, even if it's a long shot. Contacting the police at this point is a no brainier; there is pretty much no additional cost to do so vs what he could possibly gain on. Also, to make the space safer for anyone else that might run into these guys, better to at least let the cops know that there are criminals out there operating with this particular modus.

Again, so sorry op dude. But, that's them changes. (that's purposeful, it's a song title).

This things are the worst way to be on a situation with. Ask if you chase them by going to the police, the idea of it is good but the Bitcoin or money that will be returned to you depends on how your police system works. Normally the chances of your money being retrieved again is how much is the money taken away and how important of a person for you to them, a 10,000$ worth of cash is a pretty big amount so you need to tell them all the details in order to increase your chances of ever retrieving your money again.

It will be better to cut the money lost and move on. Due to anonymity, it will be hard to know who you are having transactions with. And besides, Bitcoin is decentralized which means that it is not under the Governments authority by means of laws, especially if it is not legal to a certain country. You'll only be charge because of complaining. It is much better to learn from what happened and put your feet back into business.

As far as I know trading Bitcoins is not illegal anywhere in the European Union. And you can't say that he will never get his money back. The chances are low, but if he goes to the cops, then there is at least 20%-30% chance that he will get his coins back.

Unfortunately due to the nature of this transaction you have virtually a 0% chance of getting any sort of compensation. I'm sorry that happened to you but you must be very wary when making these types of deals, especially in a foreign country where the law is almost certainly not on your side. Not to mention when dealing with Bitcoin (a basically non-existent thing as far as property goes). I hope maybe you could help others not fall for this same trap as it's likely these guys will try something like this again. Good luck

you will never get your money back,forget about it and move on
you can report the scammers to the police,just to try and make this world a better place
do not expect anything to come out of this,there will be nothing bad for you,you didn't commit any crime
as long as trading bitcoins is not illegal there

My advice would be to go to the cops. I know that it will be difficult to explain about why you did transaction above the 3K limit, but I hope that they will let you off with a fine. And as a victim of crime, they should be giving you a preferential treatment. Since you are having the camera footage as well, it won't be too hard to identify and detain these criminals.

But, wait, did the op leave country to go all the way to Europe just to buy Bitcoin? Wow, that was a good risk he took. Too bad it ended up this way, and I wouldn’t recommend going to the police, because he might even be arrested in a country doesn’t know much about (as a foreigner), they might say he was involved in money laundering or whatever trash they’re likely to say.

So, just forget about it and go on. But I won’t fly to another just to buy Bitcoin, I rather take the risk of buying online through sites localbitcoins.com that going to buy face to face. You may end up in the hands of deadly criminals.

you didnt commit a crime, report this.

Some takeaways and observations:

1) always report theft to the police. at the very least you pay income tax; you are not liable for tax on money you dont have, and you may be able to claim this as a capital loss, lowering your tax footprint.

2) be wary of large amounts of fiat. this should be a red flag. when you seen this, assume you are facilitating money laundering, which you might be criminally liable for.

3) if you make up an id, will it really matter? they stole fizzy lifting drink, obviously they werent going to give you a valid id. hell, they brought monopoly money to the game, LOL. in the meanwhile, you tried to satisfy the reporting requirements. also, there is usually a "x days from transaction" caveat of reporting, they dont expect you to instantly file it. you are most likely fine if this just happened.

4) be quick. camera footage goes away after a while, and if the value is spent, even if they catch them there is no recourse.

5) be smarter than this in the future. im not talking about your money, Im talking about you life. these guys could have knocked a hole in your head very discreetly, and we would not be talking about this right now because you would be in a trashcan somewhere. whenever you transfer large value, play it uber safe. use fiat gateways for transactions of this size, reputable ones.

The easiest way to steal a bitcoin key (and your value) isnt a fancy malware program or confidence scam. Its a gun to your head, or a knife to your throat.

Legally speaking, you would have to make a police report so that the criminals in question may be put to justice. But if you just want people to be aware of these kind of scams, then it would just be best to expose them as you did by posting here in this forum. Since you are not concerned in getting your money back, which is as well might be hard, then I don't think you need to go to the police.

The choice of course would be up to you. International law and jurisdiction is sometimes tricky, especially with cases pertaining to crimes and scams like this. With the evidences you mentioned, it may be hard to prove your case much less gather the security cam footage. My advice to you is to be cautious next time and to warn your friends and fellow btc users.

He said it was "over $10k, which could as well be 15, 20 or 50. That's why I asked how much it was.



Did you even read his post?

We then went back to my hotel lobby and I sent the BTC to his blockchain.info wallet address

So yes, he owns a wallet and OP knows the address. How is that going to help according to you?

You know nothing about them. Do you really want to gamble with the police associating you with them? WHO KNOWS what other activity they are into, and you have no way to prove that they own a bitcoin wallet.

You think $10k is a lot? What do you think the fines/time are on money laundering, supporting drugs/terrorists, etc ?

If they're truly fake bills, you may want to report them to the police. It is a serious offence. Of course, ensure you won't get into any trouble. Hopefully, there's cctv, paper & digital trail etc.

I guess letting it go will be better than getting into trouble. I am not too sure about the regulation in Italy but based on the $3000 threshold you mentioned.

i think if you tell police,things will be worse for you

This is one of the reason why I hope BTC will be sold and bought by banks someday.
You'll have to go the police to report the theft. It matters that the police knows that kind of theft can happen, but don't expect to see your money back.

^ ^ ^
He said he lost $10,000.
That is alot of money to almost anyone to lose if it were in USD (which i doubt it was) or in euros, which makes it worst being worth more than this same amount in the USD.

Which European country was this in?

If it was in France then you should of been wary since there are a lot of pick pockets there even walking in the streets of Paris in broad daylight you need to be wary of your surroundings so not to be a victim of theft from the people you pass by on the street.
AS I know I was there and know what to look out for.

All the best of luck to you getting the money back which would be hard since you are worried about AML evidence being not in your favor.

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