A victim contacted us after losing money through a crypto investment scam. It followed a familiar grooming fraud pattern. Fake trading platform, fake profits shown on screen, real money sent out, never coming back.

He’d already gone to police. They told him they couldn’t assist because the activity happened outside their jurisdiction.

When he went back to the website where he’d been trading, the page had changed. The platform was gone. In its place was a notice saying the website had been seized by authorities.

The page showed logos for the AFP, Europol, City of London Police, Polish Police, Swedish Police, the National Crime Agency. All the names you would expect to see if something had genuinely been taken down.

He didn’t know what to do next, so he sent it to us.

When I reviewed the site, it was clear what had happened. The original scam had run its course. Too many complaints, too much negative information online. The trading platform itself was no longer useful.

This is a typical scam pattern. The initial scam ends, then a recovery scam follows. That part isn’t new.

What was different here was the execution.

Instead of abandoning the website, they shut the whole platform down and reused it. They turned the entire site into a fake law enforcement seizure notice and used it to funnel victims into a new scam, a fake crypto recovery service.

Same people. Same infrastructure. New angle.

From a technical point of view, it wasn’t complex. From a behavioural point of view, it was well thought through. They took something that had lost credibility and repurposed it to target people who were already stressed, embarrassed, and looking for someone to take control.

That’s why this sort of thing is dangerous. It doesn’t rely on greed. It relies on desperation.

I’ll share screenshots so others can see how this is being done.

PS -
We do help people in these situations, but it’s important to be clear about what help actually looks like.

- No one can guarantee recovery of funds.
- No one can promise law enforcement action.
- No third party can force an exchange to cooperate.

Anyone claiming otherwise is not being honest.

What we can do is help victims make sense of what’s happened. We help collate the information, draft statements, prepare referral packages, and carry out preliminary crypto tracing to identify where funds may have gone. That gives people clarity and a realistic view of what options, if any, are available.

If someone genuinely has your best interests at heart, they will never promise outcomes they can’t control.

Blair Joynson is on LinkedIn