Online Trading Scam — €74,500 Frozen and Recovered

Our client lost €74,500 to a fake online trading platform. Acting within hours of instruction, our team obtained a precautionary freeze of the entire amount from the fraudsters' accounts. This is one of the largest single-case fund freezes we have obtained in online trading fraud.

The fraud

A sophisticated network of operators contacted the client through a messaging platform, presenting an exclusive trading opportunity with a dedicated personal account manager. The trading interface showed dramatic gains. When the client attempted to withdraw €74,500 in profits, the platform demanded payment of a 'release tax'. This is a standard final step in fake trading scams — extracting a further payment before disappearing.

Emergency legal action

We filed a criminal complaint and emergency seizure request the same day the client contacted us. The prosecuting authority issued the freeze order within 48 hours, targeting the bank accounts identified through the wire transfer records. The speed of the intervention was decisive: the funds had not yet been moved to a further layer of accounts.

€74,500 recovered — because the client called us before paying the so-called 'release tax'. That payment would have been the final transfer in the fraud chain, and would have moved the funds to an unrecoverable position.

Result

All €74,500 were frozen and subsequently returned to our client. The criminal case against the operators of the fraudulent platform is pending before the competent court.