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Yesterday , in Bucharest i meet 2 guys they wanted to buy 1.5 btc with cash . We meet in a bar and when we waited for transaction confirmation they run away . i was able to catch one and called the police and start a prosecuter interogation etc.
The other one transfered the money few time but i don't know exactly where money was send becouse they ended in this moment in a big wallet , maybe a excenge or sommeting.
Maybe sommeone from here help me with some details .

64fb3396b8f5a105734d10eedabc5c4aa58fba6e8dea8b4f6b78a68471a51d68     transaction i bought from binance
2c2d966b5012732a301196ef66214f0d80d8a53980cbff59ead6a6a36e47ca24     transaction when i sent the money to thief

wallet of the thef 1MhAywXcTF78eWVttBsVawSUZyhc53DMkf
thef moved from firt addres to this address 1Cw2TaFu25NiEDJctaLf41JRRkqqwntt6v
end maybe in this address but not sure 1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s

If sommeone can tell me more or how i can track i will thank you very much.

Do you have a proof that you reported it to the police?
I am not sure if there is anything YOU may do, but maybe police may contact chipmixers to ask if address belongs to them. If he left his IP it will be easier to find him. It will be difficult because probably it will be an international operation so it will require cooperation on different levels. Good luck anyway...

Hmmm. I haven't done any extensive analysis on this, i merely pulled the addresses through walletexplorer, and it seems that 1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s might belong to binance?

https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/Binance.com?from_address=1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s

Again - uncertain how accurate this data is, and of course if your bitcoins are still on the exchange at all.

Even if this is where your bitcoin has ended up, - it'll most likely still be next to impossible to get them back without something such as a court order, so don't get your hopes up.

Just for the sake of clarification; I actually had to read OP a few times before I realized what had actually happened.

You contacted or were contacted by someone (the 2 guys) that wanted to buy 1.5BTC in cash. 23.000USD in cash. I'm pretty sure that's rather ilegall and goes against many anti moeny laundering regulations, but that's not the point here.

You bought some BTC (1.52033000), and met with the guys.

You sent the guys the coins, and they ran away both with the coins and the 23k.

Is this part right so far?

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Because there are a couple of things that don't match to your story. First of all, let me say that I'm calling you a liar, but there are a couple of things that stand out and require some clarification. Let's see...

You bought the 1.52033000BTC on the 10th of November at 10:00AM, and sent them to 12o7wnUF574txi3jGBxBM6cgPxc69xAFZW

From 12o7wnUF574txi3jGBxBM6cgPxc69xAFZW, the coins were sent to both 1HU46MCbGcZ3huKLGBPjtpHUP6bjaad6ep (your address) and 1MhAywXcTF78eWVttBsVawSUZyhc53DMkf. Same day, but at 10:25AM

You then sent the coins to 1MhAywXcTF78eWVttBsVawSUZyhc53DMkf, which is the scammers account and then they ran away. That happened at ALSO at 10:25AM.

So the problems with this timeline are the following:

-You sent money twice (?) to the thieves address
-Only 25 minutes happened between the operation in which you bought the coins and when you were robbed.

So... did you meet this guys to sell BTC, or did they offer you a price for using your binance account to buy them some coins? It's just odd that the time lapse is that small, and well, the fact the you sent money twice is also strange.

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As a side note, no; there's not much you can do to track them down. Your only chance is to get in contact with authorities so that they get in touch with binance and see if a ring bells; but while doing this, I'm pretty sure you'd be incriminating yourself in a couple of felonies too....

As @AdolfinWolf said, the coins seem to have stuck in Binance and there is nothing you can do about it unless you report your case to the police, and get an official letter from them which can be submitted to the Binance support to hold the funds. Better yet, ask the police team to get in touch with the Binance support.

On a side note, if you caught one of them, it shouldn't be that hard to find his partner especially when police are doing the interrogations.

I sent the money in euro Sepa to binance on 9 monday . and i didnt wanted to buy becouse of the fluctuation and when the guy called me/10 thusday / to meet with 1 hour befour i changed in Binance the euro to bitcoin . with maybe 20 minutes befour meet i send the money from binance wallet to my wallet /blockhain info wallet.At the table with them i wayted a little to see the BTC transfered from my binance account to my Blockchain wallet. After few minutes i transferet to them .

First guy invoqued a family call and  exit  away after i sent the money to theyr wallet . they put the receiver phone on the table ..their phone ...was a iphone with a jaxx live wallet where you can see the balance you can enter without password in aplication but if you want to send them back the aplication have password ...so nothing you can do to revert .

the second told me don't worry the money are here on phone on the table  ...as i allready told the first guy left to make a call and the second wanted to go quick to hospital becouse one relative have problems etc but they told me they will come back quick ..and don;t warry the phone is one the table.

Befour the meeting the second guy had the money on him becouse we been to a exchange office and check the money are ok and not false but maybe was a 3 -rth person becouse after he went to toilet i think the money dissaperead . when the police got him the was not money in his posesion.

I left with him , he was agresive verbal to get ride of me but my luck was a police patrol and we went to police etc...made statsment etc. 3-4 hour , the case was taken by a prosecutor etc..
The  guy who left first was the mastermind the guy who went with me to police was the muscle becouse he revealed everithing , the transfer , everithing . He try to invoke he don;t know the second guy ..

The reason i write here is that i hope the firt "smart guy" to try to exhange the money sommewhre and maybe there to have a chance.

I realise i have very little chance to recover money but i hope , is the only thing i can do.

You made so many mistakes believing all this BS. When unsure, follow your gut feeling. How can this not raise red flags?

Did you properly report it to the police? Did they determine the identity of one of the thieves?
If so, your chances of getting your money (in your local currency, not BTC) back is still possible.

I doubt you will be able to get the identity of the person depositing the coins to binance. I mean, the possibility still exists, but i doubt your local police would be competent enough for that to achieve.

Trading 1.5 BTC for cash seems like a bad idea^TM tho.

Now i realized how stupid i was/am.Yes . They interogate that guy .  . The prosecutor told me they will sure identify the second guy.
Now i wait. Exactly as you said for the police crypto is new and dont know if they can follow the Btc.
Thank u for all your responses i feel a little better when i share with sommeone

1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s definitely is owned by Binance. You should issue a ticket to support together with the police report. Binance support is pretty good.

Thats what I was wondering. The moment you trade BTC with cash, the entire alerting system of your mind and body should be running on 100%. Just due to the fact that you do such a deal. Adding the amount of Cash involved, makes it even more true any even slightest flag, may it be just yellow, back away from the deal as legitimate people, NEVER give you flags.

If they're really dumb, they've sold the coins and withdrawn the fiat to their own bank account.
If they're any smart, they've used Binance's 2BTC per day no KYC ability to exchange to Monero and you'll never see your coins again.

Not necessary.
He might not get his BTC back through contacting binance, but maybe by filing a police report.

If they succeed in finding the other person and file a claim, he will at least have the possibility to get the $ equivalent of his BTC at that day back.

that address has 24 times (https://bitcoinwhoswho.com/address/1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s) reported, I think they wouldn't surprise to receive 25th complaint.

I called the police contact becouse i can't talk direct with the  prosecutor and i told them about binance and send them again the hash of the transaction by mail . Maybe binance will reveal the identiti or block the money

I thought after i send them the money they transfer to theyr second wallet but in the second wallet is to much activity  and i think is a exhange or mixer that use binance in the end .
maybe sommeone know sommething abiout this addresses

13Tf6HCveJWZg6athQu2eqvw6rVBcfRfqY
and
1Cw2TaFu25NiEDJctaLf41JRRkqqwntt6v

based from wallet explorer, it seemed those 2 addys are owned by an exchange. and looking at the history, a lot of money come and go in these addresses. so maybe they were already doing this scheme to others.

https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/1Cw2TaFu25NiEDJctaLf41JRRkqqwntt6v
https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/13Tf6HCveJWZg6athQu2eqvw6rVBcfRfqY

the reality is they may have already converted your coin to monero just like what others are saying. and if those thieves didnt submit kyc, would be hard to track down.
just wondering based on OP's reg here in the forum, you are a newbie but been here in the forum since 2016, so am assuming you should have known this kind of illegal activity already. i hope thats the last one that you will experience and be more careful next time in dealing with strangers. in terms of recovering your coins, dont think you will get back the coins. an expensive lesson here.

The police authorities literally have one criminal with them, if you don't expect the police authorities to find his friend, you shouldn't expect the community will be able to find anything with those transaction addresses. Rather, try to reach out to higher authorities who could be able to solve your case competitively.

you have tracking self >
- https://bitcoinwhoswho.com/address/1Cw2TaFu25NiEDJctaLf41JRRkqqwntt6v
- https://bitcoinwhoswho.com/address/13Tf6HCveJWZg6athQu2eqvw6rVBcfRfqY
see Transaction History and you will find Bitcointalk thread > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2617681.0

Stolen bitcoin ended in 1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s  wallet ,  a BINANCE.COM wallet . They have a tweet in with they recognize this address belong to them.
The Police send them mail to reveal the entity behind the tranzaction and they don't respond after 2 months.
I realised the  stolen bitcoins from all the world can be exchanged at Binance without ptoblem.
Don't understant why Eu let them operate if they don't colaborate with autorities.

They have recently closed their EU headquarters in Jersey.

Still you should use twitter maybe, CZ is pretty active there.

Good luck

How many transactions before the coins ended up in Binance? ???

Unless it was 1, you've no real clue as to whether or not it was the actual thieves who sent the coins into Binance. They may have sent it to a gambling site... who then paid it out to another completely different user... or they may have put it into a mixer etc.

Looking at the blockchain records, it was one. OP sent coins to the 1MhAy... address which he states is the thief's wallet. From there, they went straight to (what is presumably) a Binance deposit address 1Cw2T... and then were swept along with a bunch of other addresses in to 1NDyJ..., which we know to be one of Binance's central wallets.

The 1Cw2T... address is still in use, still seeing regular deposits and still being regular swept to the 1NDyJ... address. Do Binance not generate a fresh address for each deposit?

Regardless, even if they have never completed KYC, Binance should still have an IP address and email address for this account, although whether they would be of any use (since easily spoofed) is unknown.

No.
Binance is made for the average user.
And the average user doesn't understand the concept of addresses in bitcoin.

We can be happy that they don't change the address after each deposit. Otherwise we probably would have hundreds of posts asking whether binance got hacked because there is now a different address shown.

Do they at least provide an option to generate a new deposit address?

Honestly, it seems like almost every day I am astounded by some new piece of information revealing just how terrible centralized exchanges are, and every time I am amazed that people just accept these kind of behaviors. A few days ago I just learned that Coinbase "recommend" linking your wallet with your KYCed account and then making your wallet "public", thereby putting your details on some public database so that other people can search for you, like some kind of horrendous Facebook friends list.

And now you tell me that Binance give every customer a single deposit address. Given that these deposit addresses all sweep in to a known Binance wallet, then they are easily identified as Binance deposit addresses. So if anyone is able to identify a single deposit you've made to Binance, they can now identify every deposit you've ever made or will ever make to Binance, as well as link all the addresses in those transactions as belonging to you. As if KYC wasn't bad enough, by using Binance you now publicize huge amounts of your financial data.

Why do people accept this? This is horrendous.

No, but you can still withdraw up to 2 BTC/day on Binance, so you can create a new account each time. It's terrible for privacy, but they're not the only one: Bittrex provides only one deposit address too, and from what I've seen most online casino's are the same.

I accidentally noticed this thread. First of all, OP, I'm sorry for your loss. Do you have any updates? Did Police make any steps forward with the investigation?

Second of all: are you Romanian? I'm asking because your English is terrible, very hard to be understood by natives, not to mention non-English natives (see csmiami's post). If you are Romanian, maybe you should also start a similar thread in the Romanian board. Maybe some of the Romanian users are not visiting this board, but they can help you.

Besides all these, where did you find these guys? Are they forum users... LocalBitcoins users...? Can you share their usernames if so? I don't think you just bumped into them while walking on the street, therefore mentioning their origins may be useful.

I remember that last year I read a similar topic on the Romanian board. Someone was accusing a user offering crypto-fiat services for being a thief. At that moment, the user being accused came with proof that the accuser was just trying to ruin his business for no reason (if I remember well the proof was good), but seeing this topic I remembered also that topic - that's why I'm asking where you met those guys.

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I also didn't see OP explaining csmiami's interesting observation (it also seems that nobody else noticed it):


As I can see on the Blockchain, when OP bought the coins, se sent right in that transaction 10,000 satoshis to the thief (1Mha) and 1.52 BTC to himself, then, in the very sent minute, the 1.52 BTC were moved again, to the thief's address. Why did you do that OP? What was the point to send the thief 10,000 satoshis?

I guess it is mostly because they don't really care about the decentralized or privacy aspects of bitcoin.
All they care about is buying them and selling them later for a profit margin of X %.

I wouldn't even be surprised if the majority of people buying coins on binance/coinbase, don't even withdraw them but keep them laying there to avoid paying a fee reducing their margin.

evidence suggests that this is true. majority of those who go to exchanges for trading are only there for profit and never withdraw their coins. i mentioned this in another topic talking about rich lists (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5313831.msg56250446#msg56250446) and that the number of addresses with more BTC has grown more.
of course in case of Binance it is because the altcoin traders don't or can't run the altcoin wallets on their computers.

I assume that OP didn't actually purchase the bitcoin 25 minutes before the transaction with the thief like Csmiami suggests. More likely is the bitcoin were already on his Binance account and had been for some time, he simply withdrew them to his own wallet shortly before meeting up with the thief. And the first transaction for 10,000 satoshi was presumably a "test" transaction, to ensure the addresses were correct and there was no concern regarding clipboard malware, fake QR codes, or whatever. Once they saw those 10,000 sats show up unconfirmed in the thief's wallet, he then made the rest of the transaction.

As I seem to recall some details vaguely from this thread, I've re-read all the info provided by OP in the first posts. The whole thing was fishy from the start, and basically, some unkown people contacted OP for him to buy them some Bitcoin. OP wire transfered some money to Binance, then withdrew to his blockchain.com addy and from there, he sent the money to the scammers. All of this happened in a couple of hours.

The part of sending money to the scammers addy would make sense as a test, but both were made on the same minute, and AFAIK blocks aren't mined that fast yet

I thought also about that, but I came to the conclusion that nowhere in the world this could be the reason.


Furthermore, I think that not even the txID itself can be seen on Blockchain within seconds. Remember that both transactions of 10,000 sats and 1.52 BTC were made at 10:25. As far as I know, the wallet gives you the txID right after the transaction was made, but in some cases the respective transaction isn't shown on the block explorers before some seconds pass (maybe even up to a minute). Besides that, they would also spend seconds in order to access a block explorer, insert the txID in order to search for it; maybe also refresh the page for a few times until they could see the transaction there (although not confirmed -- which implies no test could be done up to this point). All these seconds would make the second transaction to be created at least 1 minute later, but no, the second one was made within the very same minute, at 10.25.

So considering all these, I'm not sure if it was a test or something else. In order for the test to succeed, they would have needed at least a few minutes, for the transaction to receive confirmations and to appear in the thief's wallet -- in case the transaction was processed in the very next block (which is also not necessary to happen); therefore, if it was a test, then the second transaction (the 1.52 BTC one) should have been made after several minutes and, in any case, not within the very same minute as the "test" one...

That's why I'm asking OP -- something doesn't tie up here...

Not at all. No confirmations were needed and only a couple of seconds were needed to confirm the test transaction. Also, no block explorers were required.

If the thief opens his wallet and gives OP an address, and OP sends 10,000 sats to that address, the thief's wallet will show the incoming transaction within two or three seconds. You can test this yourself when you pay for something using a payment processor, which detects your transaction seconds after you hit send. You can even test this yourself by opening two Electrum wallets and sending coins between them. As soon as the transaction is broadcast, it is relayed across the network within a few seconds. Seeing the transaction show up in the thief's wallet, even with zero confirmations, is enough to confirm the address is correct. OP can simply click on the same address, click "max" or "send all", and click broadcast. The whole thing could be done in 10 seconds.

Uhm... maybe this is the case with Electrum and / or some other wallets... But this doesn't happen with all the wallets. I can confirm you that Bitcoin Wallet for Android and Jaxx don't list a transaction with 0 confirmations. And, most likely, other wallets do the same.

This transaction, as example: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/abb0a820a43e92ff9e3a1f9e6967f2c59e76b5cd1909d44c06af813e75251913

Was sent to my address from Bitcoin Wallet for Android 4 days ago and it still has 0 confirmations. And it still doesn't appear in my wallet. If you wish, I can also upload a screenshot from my wallet...

OP said the thief was using Jaxx wallet:

You say Jaxx doesn't show up unconfirmed transaction, but my (admittedly several years ago) experience with Jaxx is that it does. Certainly, their support pages suggest that unconfirmed transactions are displayed as "pending transactions": https://support.decentral.ca/hc/en-us/articles/360048583473-Pending-Transaction

Uhm... Maybe Jaxx changed. Or behaves weird sometimes.

There are two aspects here: the one about showing unconfirmed transactions and the one about pending transactions.

So, about showing unconfirmed transactions, I confirm that it doesn't show them. Last week I was expecting to receive some BTC and I could see the transaction on Blockchain (with 0 confirmations), but not in Jaxx. I saw it after it received a confirmation. And this happened with 2 transactions. There is no "pending" transaction shown when you expect to receive funds inside the wallet.

The "pending" transactions are those which you send from Jaxx, but they don't have confirmations or have few confirmations. For this kind of transactions there is indeed a "pending" status, which lasts until the transaction receives 1-3 confirmations. This is also the weird part: so I saw a transaction which switched from "pending" to "completed" while having just 1 confirmation, but I also saw transactions which still appeared in "pending" after 2 or 3 confirmations. Even more weird is the fact that a transaction with 3 confirmation, which appeared as "pending", switched to "completed" without receiving another confirmation.

Also about the sent transactions which appear as "pending" starting with 0 confirmations: they are shown in Jaxx at several seconds (maybe even 30-60 seconds) after being shown on Blockchain. It seems the wallet acts with some lag.

All of the above occur on Jaxx on both BTC and ETH.

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Excepting all these, I also noticed that the number of confirmations appears slower on Jaxx after the transaction receives confirmations and these are shown on Blockchain. The delay here is up to 2-3 minutes. Jaxx shows also the number of confirmations of a transaction. And I was checking (many times) the transactions on Blockchain and I could see that one (let's say) had 2 confirmations. Jaxx was showing it has only 1. When the transaction received a third confirmation on Blockchain, Jaxx was showing it has 2 etc.

Last, but not least, another weird thing about Jaxx is that it doesn't allow you to send another transaction until it sees a previous one completed. This lattest part is also weird, as sometimes it considers a transaction as being completed after 1 confirmation, sometimes after two, sometimes after three... So excepting the fact that it doesn't have a fixed number determining when a transaction is completed, it also doesn't allow you to send another transaction before the completion of the previous one (and it's only up to Jaxx's "mood" when a transaction switched from pending to completed).

In comparison, Bitcoin Wallet for Android allows you to send another transaction, although the previous one is not confirmed yet (it allows you although the previous one has 0 confirmations).

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Back on topic, I confirm again that Jaxx doesn't show incoming transactions with "pending status". It only shows outgoing ones with this status, but not immediately after they are broadcast. They (outgoing transactions with 0 confirmations) are shown as pending after several seconds.

And Bitcoin Wallet for Android behaves the same: it doesn't show an incoming transaction with 0 confirmations. (I still can't see in my wallet that transaction I previously mentioned, which was sent to me on January 30th - https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/abb0a820a43e92ff9e3a1f9e6967f2c59e76b5cd1909d44c06af813e75251913 - and which still has 0 confirmations (I hope miners will process it though prior BTC soars to $1M :) )).

I'm romanian / Sorry for my english . I used a translator now.
I had to sell an Antminer s9 on olx (like ebay) and they called me to ask me if it is for sell and after that he asked me if i want to sell bitcoin becouse his bank account is bloked.
Yes, I made a small transaction before the main transaction to make sure it appears in their wallet. They used jaxx live wallet on an Iphone. I could enter the application without password on their phone but I could not withdraw to perform operations.the app asked for password . They said he would go outside to talk on the phone and leave the phone on the table and rest assured that the money was there. I realized and caught one and called the police.
I bought from binance by SEPA bank transfer and it took 2 or 3 days until the money arrived. As soon as I transferred the money from Binance to blockain.info (my wallet) I called them to meet.
You say the wallet before main binance wallet can be also a binance wallet ?

A month ago I went to the police to identify from a paper with several pictures of some people but he was not in the pictures. Until now, they could not force the person I brought to say (disclose) the other's identity. the other made the transactions. The one caught by me was just his bodyguard

If the police can identified the other, they could find transactions in his accounts or something. the investigation would go much better. I have his picture but what can I do with it.

OP, try to start a topic in the Romanian board. You may have more chances there. Your English is terrible and I doubt anyone truly understands everything you want to say. Eventually I can update this topic later, using a proper English, once I manage to understand what you will say in Romanian.

Besides, please read the earlier posts...like this post of mine:


What are their names? Phone numbers? At what bar did you go? Maybe that bar had security cameras...


So you have their phone, yes? Did you look into the phone? Check for contacts, text messages, crypto wallets, anything?

They used rechargeable SIM cards. Here you can buy this cards without ID . The police have that phone, images from bar etc...
I opened this topic thinking that I could identify something, I thought I could identify the exchange they used.
I will close the topic and thank you for the answers.

I am also Romanian, that's why I suggested you to start a topic in the Romanian board.

Although you don't know the exchanged they used, you could obtain other valuable information if you would share what I asked you above:


But, as far as I see from your answers, either you are not that interested in catching the thieves or you don't understand what I'm writing here.

Hi i allready told you in a reply if you look back .

I had to sell an Antminer s9 on olx (like ebay) and they called me to ask me if it is for sell and after that he asked me if i want to sell bitcoin becouse his bank account is bloked.
I chouse the bar . is at Universitate / Palaria lui George Mihaita.
I don't have acces to the guy name  , after the police finish the investigation i will have acces to the  file .
The police try to identify the other guy .

Just analyzed your loss and as others said your funds are tracable to Binance. If Binance didn't support then you should follow other traces. I found a couple of traces to other exchanges. Below is one path to kraken.com which is most probably better in KYC and more supportive to police requests. I didn't follow your coins directly, I analysed what other addresses have the same owner and if they end up at an exchange. This increases the chances usually by far but cannot be done manually.

Your scammer is a kraken.com client, his deposit address is 3GaGnDtRcgYL1E7C2hJKXsFThj8RTua5ad. So ask the police to approach Kraken to get all information about their client (e.g. id, bank account, bitcoin withdrawal address(es), altcoin withdrawal address(es)). If one of the first two information is available then you can claim back your loss, if one of the last two then this is the starting point for a follow up analysis.

Why the Kraken client with deposit address 3GaGnDtRcgYL1E7C2hJKXsFThj8RTua5ad is most probably your scammer:

• At transaction https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/88511eff4ae8ac51fafddd8e20bbd03aaf308f830a2eb3ea43aa09870a5db323 the thief likely sent the bitcoin to himself from address 1MhAywXcTF78eWVttBsVawSUZyhc53DMkf to address 1Cw2TaFu25NiEDJctaLf41JRRkqqwntt6v (a Binance deposit address)
• At transaction https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/df7c953aa1baa8583325e8f9072cede351dcb8f761f6ecc0e96b39f7a531fd54 someone deposited from address 18APZ2f3Dmo13KQddTs8hqydEKYeWr7YiV as well bitcoin to the Binance address 1Cw2TaFu25NiEDJctaLf41JRRkqqwntt6v. Therefore the owner of address 18APZ2f3Dmo13KQddTs8hqydEKYeWr7YiV is likely the same person who owns 1MhAywXcTF78eWVttBsVawSUZyhc53DMkf (the scammer)
• At transaction https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/8bfefa9daed35ccde3cfd33d045e4a028c98eafa1fad70e5574b495531e9b498 bitcoin were sent from address 18APZ2f3Dmo13KQddTs8hqydEKYeWr7YiV to address 3GaGnDtRcgYL1E7C2hJKXsFThj8RTua5ad which is a deposit address of kraken (I know this because I have access to databeses with millions of known exchange addresses).

Bottom line it's likely that your scammer is depositing at Kraken under address 3GaGnDtRcgYL1E7C2hJKXsFThj8RTua5ad and Kraken is the next logical step to contact (by legal enforcement because for data privacy reasons they won't hand out their clients data to you)
 
It's likely but not 100% sure because in the intermediate steps there is the little chance that the scammer made a donation to someone else or paid someone with exactly the huge amount without a change. But in this case follow this bottom up. The kraken client should be in this case able to tell the police from whom (the scammer) he received the funds and why.

Good luck in claiming your bitcoin back!
In case you need a professional expert statement for the police or for your legal representative with detailed explanation of the evidences or if you need one of the other available paths to exchanges traced let me know.

Hello. Update after 18 months. . Thank you very much for your help and advice. Binance cooperated with the Romanian authorities and identified the people behind the wallets. The money was confiscated and everything is fine. They were stored at Binance.

The criminal investigation is still ongoing. I will give more details at the end of the criminal trial.

OP, I am very happy to hear that the advice you received here actually helped you in your quest for obtaining your money back.


This is even more great news! However, this amazes me, in a way. And this is because I would never believe that our local Police is capable of such investigation or they would ever pay attention to such kind of a theft. Obtaining crypto funds back, after a theft, is something difficult allover the world. But it's even more difficult in countries where local authorities don't even understand what they're dealing with. And I was almost certain that our Police would not give a damn for your complaint.

Seeing though that they really involved in your case; seeing that they identified the thieves; seeing that they went even further, to collaborate with Binance send a subpoena to Binance, in order to seize the thieves' funds (funds which, in fact, belonged to you) -- all these made me to see our Police in a total different view. I am not surprised by the fact that Binance accepted to seize the funds after receiving the subpoena; I am amazed by the fact that our local Police managed to go that far.

Probably, what I'm saying here may surprise many readers, which may think "Why is Gazeta so surprised? For Police it was the natural thing to do.". Such questions are perfectly normal to pop in mind. But I know how our Police works; I know how, many times, the victim is seen as the attacker; I know how, many times, they do not care for even more harsh abuses; and I know (or, I thought I knew) that our local authorities (including Police) have no idea what Bitcoin is. This is why I am so impressed by what OP managed to reach so far, with the help of Police...

OP, whenever you can (and whenever the law will allow you to), please let us know about the further proceedings. Good luck!

These guys made several mistakes :

They used a centralized service ==> Binance in this scenario, so it might be possible for the authorities to subpoena Binance to acquire their details. (As you did) They also arranged to meet you in a public place (where there might be CCTV footage of them, if you act quickly in the place where you met or the surrounding area) ....and they left someone behind.

I will put a lot of pressure on the person that they left behind, because he will be key to the recovery of the money. (Get as much information as possible on him, you will eventually find his friends...even if you have to pay someone to get it for you)  ;) The criminal justice system has loopholes for criminals, so it can be used to their advantage.... so people like us has to use our own resources to find justice. (legal ways, like hiring a private investigator or offering a reward for information)