This is a cutting-edge case demonstrating an innovative and successful method for recovering cryptocurrency from a romance scam, even after the funds had left centralized exchanges.
Case Type: Romance Scam & Cryptocurrency (Tether/USDT) Recovery
Amount Recovered: Nearly $900,000
Location: UK / USA
The Challenge:
A UK victim, at a vulnerable point in her life, was manipulated over many months on Match.com by a man posing as a wealthy diplomat . The scammer, using deep-fake video calls and fabricated documents, convinced her to cash in her $1 million pension, convert it to USDT (a stablecoin), and transfer it to him. Our team was contacted six months later, a significant delay that can often make recovery impossible.
Our Approach:
We immediately engaged blockchain tracing specialists who rapidly traced the stolen assets . When we identified the funds were held in private digital wallets, we knew standard freezing methods wouldn’t work. We contacted the stable-coin issuer Tether to blacklist the wallets and worked with U.S. law enforcement to obtain civil seizure warrants. This enabled a unique “burn-and-remint” process, where the tainted tokens were destroyed and new, clean tokens were issued to a government-controlled wallet for the victim’s benefit .
The Outcome:
Through innovative legal strategy and close cooperation with U.S. law enforcement and Tether, we successfully recovered nearly $900,000 for the victim, who had been told her money was gone . This case represents one of the first times this “burn-and-remint” recovery method was used on behalf of a UK-instructed team, demonstrating our ability to deploy cutting-edge solutions for crypto fraud.
