Successful Recovery of Funds After

Case Type: Romance Fraud / Emotional Fraud

Victim's identity: Single woman in Taipei City (alias: Ms. Wang)

Amount Recovered: NT$1.800.000

Processing Time: About 2.5 months

Love is budding, but there is a trap behind the sweet words.

Ms. Wang, a 35-year-old office worker in Taipei City, had been in a relationship hiatus for many years.2024 At the beginning of the year, she received a private message on Instagram from an unknown man who claimed to be an engineering consultant named "David" from Texas, U.S., who was currently working on an international energy project in Malaysia. Ms. Wang felt warm and sincere because of his fluent English, handsome photo, and gentlemanly manner. The two of them soon moved to LINE chatting, and their relationship heated up quickly with messages every day.

David often expressed his future plans and visions in his messages, promising to come to Taiwan to meet Ms. Wang after the project was over, and even mentioned marriage and plans to live together many times, which convinced Ms. Wang that she had met her true love.

Investment project in the name of luring the transfer of money trap

About three months into the relationship, David told Ms. Wang that he had received inside information about a highly profitable local energy project, and that if he invested the money within a short period of time, he could double his profits. He emphasized that this was an internal opportunity "for high-level project staff only", and to prove his sincerity, he even showed his own "record of investment success".

Under the influence of love and trust, Ms. Wang made three transfers to the designated virtual currency wallet address, totaling NT$1.8 million, and completed the conversion and remittance via USDT. At the beginning, the other party would send the so-called "account surplus screenshots", emphasizing that the funds had increased rapidly.

However, the fourth time she was asked for additional funds, Ms. Wang felt uneasy and asked to withdraw her existing earnings, but the counterparty used reasons such as "taxes need to be paid first" and "the lock-up of smart contracts has not yet ended". Immediately thereafter, David gradually lost contact with her, his Instagram account disappeared, and he did not respond to her conversations on LINE, which is when she realized that she might have been involved in a scam.

Professional Intervention to Lock the Flow of Funds

Ms. Wang contacted our anti-fraud team on the advice of a friend. After a preliminary investigation, we determined that this was a typical "romance scam + virtual money laundering" double fraud pattern, and initiated the following process:

Digital Forensics and Data Collection

Compare the conversation records, transfer screenshots, and virtual currency addresses.

Determined that the wallet address was highly related to the past fraud cases.

The funds were found to have been transferred to an Asian exchange after two layers of wallet transfers.

Freeze the wallet and send recovery letters.

Sent a legal letter to the cryptocurrency exchange through a partner law firm

Request a temporary freeze on your account balance by providing proof of report, source of funds, and a complete record of the fraudulent process.

Communicate and negotiate with the exchange's legal department about the legitimacy and urgency of the victim's case

Assist in reporting and international coordination

Assisted Ms. Wang in completing the process of reporting a digital crime and preparing all electronic evidence.

Notified Ms. Wang of the known fraud syndicates on Interpol's list to establish a cross-border investigation channel.

Successfully recovered most of the funds

After more than 2 months of close cooperation and legal proceedings, we received a notification from the exchange confirming that the target account had an outstanding balance of approximately NT$1.55 million. The funds were eventually returned to Ms. Wang's account after negotiations and legal documents were completed.

Some of the funds had been dispersed to several untraceable wallets during the early stages of the fraudulent syndicate's transfers, but the overall amount recovered accounted for 86% of the total loss, which greatly reduced Ms. Wang's financial loss and psychological stress.