Hey all
I fell victim to a cryptocurrency theft back in November 2019. A hacker got into my email account, found my 12-word recovery phrases for several wallets, and cleaned me out. They took around 37 ETH, 20 ETC, 0.07 BTC, 20 BCH, and 30,000 DOGE, all rough numbers. At that time, I felt helpless and asked friends, but everyone said there was no chance of recovery.
Now I've got some info about this hacker, and I think law enforcement needs to get involved to dig deeper into what I know. I tried reaching out to local authorities here in the Middle East but had no luck.
From what I gathered, the hacker might be based in Russia, possibly in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Where should I go to report this?
Which details you have about the person? I doubt none. It is not good to backup seed phrase or private key online, the best is to backup offline and it should be safe from attackers and damage. But, having in online, thinking it is safe from online attackers is not correct, nothing online is safe. I doubt if you will be able to recover back the stolen funds, it is all gone. Sorry.
I know the organization(s) that have the name, email, phone number, address, and credit card used by the hacker, This organization(s) refused to revel this information to me without legal order
Be mindful of recovery services that will tell you they can help you, most of them are scammers, they might not know anything but collected money from you, telling you what you will believe but not able to do, and they will be looking for more ways to collect more money from you until you realize they are scammers.
Did you know this organization, or you just know the organization online? Have you paid the organization any money before? Do the organization tell you they can recover back your funds for you?
Report the crime in your local area and where the company is registered. There is no Cryptocurrency police instead it is theft and the normal police are the ones that can deal with the situation. There is no guarantee you get your money back or justice.
You assume something (you don't have solid evidence), and even if you have detailed information, and if your hacker is really in Russia, the chances of launching an investigation or arrest would be minimal - because it's Russia after all.
One of the golden rules when it comes to cryptocurrencies is that the backup is not stored online, and you not only did just that, but you let someone hack your email. You paid dearly for your mistake, but unless you have someone in high politics, the secret services, or something like that - I don't think anyone can help you with this. Maybe try to find a lawyer to help you pro bono, even though you literally grab very thin straws in whichever direction you go.
Op you can report the fraud case to the authorities ( Interpol in this case that is if they will be interested) but you won't have any luck recovering your money. Which I believe recovery of your coins is your primary goal. Imho if you keep chasing you are only going to lose more money in the process. Bitcoin refund scams are popular these days.
Just to be clear, you specifically contacted the cybercrime division [in your country], right?
Then work on it [with a lawyer].
- Don't get your hopes up.
They'll ignore such reports unless local authorities or the police submits them: If you need help [INTERPOL]
You've been hacked for over two years and you didn't do a thing and then suddenly you come up with the details about your hacker and you know somebody even has the "credit card" of this hacker? I would have understood the email dress and details but why the cc, why would have he used it anywhore? This is a bit fishy and I do hope you weren't approached by one of those recovery con artists Charles-Tim mentioned that will claim they know everything and they will release the info for a few thousand dollars.
Judging by your other post, can it be that the coins have moved and hit a wallet you think it's an exchange?
If that's the case then you still might have some hope if the hacker was dumb enough and used its own name and bank account.
And even if they do get forward the report they will just have it submitted to the Russian police, if that ignores it then the whole case is dead.
But other than that yeah, Interpol accepting this is his only chance, police units don't like going into international disputes for single cases, 37Eth sounds like a lot but when they will start the inquiry the value of the hack will be set at ~5000$ not what is worth now so..
Things don't look good for OP, it all depends on the story but anyhow, what's there to lose in filing a claim and poke the ones that deal with it every week? Doing nothing will certainly not bring his coins back.
First, this is why its really hard to trust up on storing your keys online specially on an email which can really be likely to be hacked if those log-in informations would leaked out and this is the culprit on why you do lost your coins.
Sad to say that it is really hard to catch up someone specially on this crypto world where everything could really be wiped off specially on someones traces.The thing that your friends were saying that there's no such thing
about recovering those funds.
Those are lost forever and theres no way on getting it back.Going with legal matters? You would surely be spending tons.. If i were you i would just simply move on even though its hard.
First of all, you need to look at your country's criminal procedure code. Typically, the victim of a crime must report to the police at the scene of the crime. If the crime scene is unknown, then at the place of residence.
However, in this case, the situation is special for several reasons. Firstly, not all states have a cryptocurrency legalized, which means that the state has determined its legal status and recognizes it as an object that qualifies as property that is subject to protection. Secondly, such crimes are very difficult to investigate because they are associated with actions in many states, and therefore the interaction of law enforcement agencies of all these states is necessary. Such interaction is carried out if appropriate agreements have been concluded between them. Thirdly, about two years have passed and it will be very difficult to verify what happened. Therefore, there is almost no chance of a successful outcome of such an investigation.
It was happening from 2015.One of my friend from Indonesia had loss over 9 bitcoin by some hackers.The value of bitcoin in 2015 was 10 percentage for now.But still the bitcoin was stolen by the hackers.He tried all the way to recover.It's failed at th end. Hackers always learn new technology over other people.
Which country do you live in? Middle East can range from Dubai, where there are good and strict laws relating to technology to Afghanistan where you can only expect Taliban to reach Russia and find your hacker. Haha Jokes apart all of this depends really on which country you live and how common is crypto there, but still If the hacker is from Russia, the best local authorities would do is just find his location after that there won't be any progress, there is no chance that he would be punished and Don't even think of getting the funds back because chances are he must have spent it until now. I know you're hopeful but sad truth is that it's impossible to get the funds back even if you file numerous cases
Sorry to burst the bubble, but I don't think that anyone or any entity can help the OP recover his crypto from this hackers. I know it's hard, but you have to face the consequences of it, and as others have said, this is a very expensive lesson to learn.
Not to rub it in, but that is the worst security and privacy practice you did by putting all 12 seed mnemonic phrase in any email.
I think putting his seed phrase in his email is not the issue , it is secured sort of but the problem is either he has exposed his email password or he stored the passphrase online and that is a bad practice because it is prone to hacking.
Having seeed phrase online is an issue, it is also even not encrypted, hackers can be able to access some email which can be a mistake from the victim. The best is to just have the seed phrase offline, it can be on paper, laminated paper or metallic steal. If someone can have his seed phrase on email, I am perfectly sure the person will not have safe method to protect the seed phrase because that is one of the worst ways to backup seed phrase.
It can be important to understand how cryptocurrencies are treated in the particular local law system, so it can be properly presented to the local criminal persecution authorities. For example, cryptocurrencies might not be considered as "property" that can be "stolen", but it may still be possible to create a fraud case.
The local authorities will contact Interpol if they figure out it's a cross-border situation. Success will still largely depend on the work of the local authorities both where the victim lives and where the money went. It can be helpful to understand how to escalate the case to the next higher authority. Still, there is often little chance to recover much of the lost money.
First, what you did is wrong of putting your seed in your email. It's a total negligence. I'm not blaming you but that's really why people shoud keep their recovery words elsewhere offline.
Secondly, if you will report this to the authorities and going to the country that you suspected where the hackers live. Do you have enough proof to your report aside from being hacked? they might turn the tide and say that it's still you that just transferred funds because you have no solid proof.
You had your seed phrase just sitting around in an email??
And it was two years ago??
Two years have passed. It seems unlikely you have the info of who hacked you. If you have some actual hard evidence I guess you could contact some sort of cyber crimes division.
And the email..really? I mean what happened to you totally sucks but come on, the one rule of crypto is to secure your private key / seed phrase. By leaving it in an email that's basically like leaving a pile of cash in an abandoned building and hoping nobody comes across it. Your keys should never be on anything online or anywhere physical where someone could easily find it. Having it in an email is the worst ignoring of crypto security i've ever heard of. Good luck though with reporting this crime.
What do you wanna do about this, to report the whom you are suspecting that you have no enough evidence and details about the person?
or do you think the wallets that moves your details has a tag name showing the person's name and you believe it was the right person you are accusing?
Menh nothing can be done about it in as much as the person you are suspecting to be the hacker does not has names tagged on his wallet then no need.
besides you should have a drive or flash for your seed phrase and private keys, i was once a victim so i m now very careful.