Our client was caught in an investment scam. He contacted iSanctuary in a desperate position and deeply concerned about the investment he had made; he was extremely distressed. The iSanctuary team immediately deployed and started to gather evidence of the crypto fraud from the victim's devices, laptop and from his account of events, they were also able to support and reassure the victim during this difficult time, he’d lost the equivalent of £2M in Norwegian krona. Lawyers acting for the victim also requested we conduct a full investigation. <br/><br /> Speed is critical in these cases due to the rapid nature in which crypto assets (coins) can transfer across the blockchain. Whilst our expert crypto investigators deployed to trace the crypto assets, our investigators obtained a detailed account of events and key identifiers. Our crypto investigators quickly identified each hop, through locating wallets, they determined they had all the characteristics of wallets holding the proceeds of crime (identifying other potential victims). <br /><br /> Meanwhile, our Open Source Intelligence Analysts (OSINT) were quickly tracking down the criminals. Our former Financial Conduct Authority investigator quickly established the registration number was fake. The trail of email addresses, crypto wallet IDs, telephone numbers and online presence led us to identify named individuals behind the scam operating from Central Europe. <br /><br/> The crypto assets were traced to a wallet held on an exchange in the Far East. Following a legal review with the client, the decision was taken to pursue the criminal complaint. iSanctuary investigators and analysts are experts in their fields and cognisant through many years of providing court-ready evidence. Statements, schedules, hash-tagged domains, intelligence, and charts were all prepared and handed over to the authorities demonstrating the evidence of the fraud, the hops, the destination of the crypto assets and the actors involved in the fraud, including their names and current locations. The authorities proceeded with the criminal investigation and prosecution.

The case concerned an exchange being sued for allegedly allowing cryptocurrencies, valued £25m, to leave a wallet after notice that it was the proceeds of crime. The case was following the developments in the UK High Court for <a class="text-grey-is font-semibold" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjSA-JNvLMuYFVKowGrS76w?view_as=subscriber">Tulip Trading Ltd (a Seychelles Company) (appellant) v Wladimir Jasper van der Laan & ors (respondents).</a> <br /><br /> The client required forensic analysis of the transactions to determine if the exchange had allowed the coins to move transact on the blockchain through their exchange. They disputed the expert evidence presented to them by the claimant and demonstrating that the coins, belonging to the claimant, had not been held on their exchange. <br /><br /> iSanctuary crypto investigators and crypto experts analysed the claimant’s expert report. Our analysts, using their blockchain investigation tools, conducted four separate methods to trace all the transactions; all to test the first-in-first-out method. Each method of analysis proved the coins did not hop into a wallet held on the respondent’s exchange. Our experts were able to present evidence that directly challenged the claimants position and led to the respondent having a robust irrefutable defence and ability to challenge the £25M claim.