Tag: recovery
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Why We Reject Certain Cases — And What That Means for Victims
One of the most misunderstood parts of investigative work is the fact that not every case can be accepted. This is not a sign of unwillingness to help—it's a core professional responsibility. By 2023, we saw a sharp…
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Case Study: Tracing $124,000 in Ethereum Through 14 Wallets
In 2022, we handled one of our most technically challenging Ethereum investigations to date. A client’s MetaMask wallet had been compromised after interacting with a fake support chat—a tactic that became increasingly common as scammers learned how to…
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Moving From Colorado Springs — Why We Needed a New Location
For many years, our Colorado Springs office was the center of everything we did. It supported early financial investigations, hundreds of client consultations, and the foundational crypto cases that shaped our modern workflow. But by 2022, it became…
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Mapping Wallet Clusters — A Major Leap in Our Methodology
By 2021, scam networks were no longer operating from a handful of isolated wallet addresses. Instead, they were using large clusters of wallets, automated movement patterns, and chain-hopping sequences designed to conceal ownership and disrupt straightforward tracing. To…
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Understanding “Verification Fees” — The Most Common Red Flag
By 2020, one red flag became so consistent across fraudulent trading platforms that it often allowed us to identify a scam within minutes: the demand for a fee before releasing a withdrawal. These so-called verification fees appeared under…
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Case Study: Recovering Funds for a Veteran Targeted by a Fake Trading Platform
In early 2020, a U.S. military veteran reached out to us after losing a significant portion of his savings to a fraudulent trading platform. The company had lured him in with professional-looking dashboards, fabricated profit graphs, and “priority support” that seemed legitimate—until he attempted to…
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The Year Crypto Scams Became Mainstream
By 2019, cryptocurrency scams had officially entered the mainstream. What began as isolated incidents in previous years evolved into highly organized global fraud networks, each with its own playbook, communication structure, and digital infrastructure. The victims were no longer only early crypto adopters—teachers, retirees, small…
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Our First Crypto Case: A $9,400 Bitcoin Withdrawal Scam
Our very first cryptocurrency case arrived in 2018 and involved a $9,400 unauthorized Bitcoin withdrawal from a custodial exchange account. At the time, crypto-related fraud was still unfamiliar territory for many victims—and for most investigators outside of government agencies. But this case quickly proved how…
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Seamus Manley welcomes Kyle Manley — And Expanding into Cryptocurrency Investigations
2018 stands as one of the most defining years in our firm’s evolution.
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Documenting Our First Large-Scale Financial Fraud Case
2017 marked a defining moment for our firm.This was the year we were assigned our first large-scale financial fraud investigation, involving multiple victims spread across three different states. The case exposed the growing sophistication of financial deception in the digital era, well before cryptocurrency became…