My husband is a Pakistani and I am Ukrainian. We were based in Kherson, Ukraine; the first city occupied by Russian troops. Escape story is long. My husband was inches away from death. But he did some heroics and managed to get himself, me and our 3 years old daughter to safety. We traveled by road to Moldova. Spent a couple of days in Moldova, we drove to Romania. From Romania we flew to France. Not only we escaped ourselves, we managed to get 209 families afterwards, all of them women and children. My husband not only managed everything all by himself but also paid for all 209 families. Each evacuation cost us approx. $1200 per head. We moved at least 597 people. All financed by us. It was all covered on various tv channels such as Skye News, BBC, CNN and many more like this.
My husband family based in Pakistan, were extremely worried about us. We decided fly to Pakistan and spend 2-3 weeks there before we start rebuilding our life in Lisbon, Portugal. A week later my husband reported severe pain in hip muscle. It was a routine trip to a nearby international hospital. Doctor wasn’t happy about something. With basic tests for muscle and bone in thigh region, he asked for some other tests too.
Couple of days later we were called by the hospital. Doctor informed us that Hussain might have cancer and they will need more tests to confirm. Making it short within 2 weeks, multiple tests, multiple biopsies; it was confirmed that Hussain is a cancer patient. Treatment began.
The Crypto part:
   My husband has been buying and selling bitcoins for profit since 2013 and he is one of those people who were early winners from crypto, the first batch of crypto enthusiasts. Since we have been traveling through war zone, multiple countries and finally in Pakistan; Hussain had his Trust Wallet and Metamask in his phone as well as mine. So that even if we lose one phone, other phone will be there as a backup securing our crypto. We also had a paper version where I had half of seeds and Hussain had other half. We had crypto of worth 3 million dollars approx. We initially had bitcoins, but since the value was shrinking, we divided the whole fortune into multiple currencies, mostly Eth.
   While we had to go Karachi to see the possibilities of surgery at a hospital there, we were stopped by 2 gun men on a motorcycle. On a busy street of Karachi, they kept as standing on gun point for 5 minutes. They were sent by someone who knew we had crypto in phone. A lot of family members and friends asked about crypto and how we kept it safe during our run from Ukraine.
These 2 guys, removed our apple IDs and passwords from the store. Now we are standing in a city that we were both traveling for first time. Me being a white woman from East Europe, usually stared upon when I go out casually, by every Pakistani men. My husband although from Pakistan had spent 14 years out of Pakistan living in Europe.
We made the police reports and all that, but it didn’t take us long knowing that crypto in our phone was gone to other wallets. We informed police about all this. They refused our claim of bitcoins, saying that they are responsible to find phones and catch criminals. They don’t care about software installed in the phone. I tried to explain and I was quickly told by a senior police officer that bitcoin is legal to buy, sell or hold in Pakistan therefore it has 0 market value.
Police was never able to identify or catch those robbers. That was 97% of money we had in the world. It was gone. We were supposed to travel, establish a new life in a new city. Most importantly, we needed money for cancer. Being a very rare type of cancer, the diagnosis and treatment was estimated at $200,000 approx. We were lost. My husband didn’t give up. He hired some blockchain expert, paid him some fee with duties to identify if funds landed into any major exchange or if any address can be connected to any registered business.
While we almost forgot about it, struggling with cancer and trouble with bills. Due to lack of finances, husband’s cancer got out of control. He at this moment is probably 8-10 weeks from dying with options that we have to fix him are unaffordable. Despite charitable during escape from Ukraine, we couldn’t catch attention of any major outlet who will help us with crowdfunding. Being in Pakistan also took options of gofundme etc. Moreover my husband was declared person of interest by the Russian occupying troops in Kherson. Going public with his whereabouts anymore wasn’t a good idea. He has lost hope and he is just ready to die, even refuses to continue the treatment we can afford.
2 days ago the person my husband hired to find some clue about funds final destination, out of nowhere sent an email asking for zoom meeting as he has been able to trace down things.
We did that immediately. He mentioned that funds have been sent to a lot of place, spreading into tens of wallets. What he found interesting was that there were a 2 addresses at the end that received around 75% of these funds. It took him a very very long time identifying the connection between the addresses. The addresses belonged to a famous crypto casino. I will not mention name here. We hired another person who confirmed the same information.
It is hard to believe that these guys robbed us for our bitcoins and ended up gambling with it. They probably sent them to this casino, played a bit and then probably moved them out. The standard technique of whitening the black money. The
I have few questions from people who have knowledge crypto and laws related to the scenario:
Q1.   Police refuses to take the complain of bitcoins, how do we legally proceed with it?
Q2.   Casino being a business should do KYC accepting that large transfers. Since the stolen money landed in casino’s account, our claim should be against them?
Q3.   The casino registered in Curacao, like every other business finding tax heavens. But Casino is providing services in Europe as well as in Pakistan. In case of claim against Casino, where we should bring a legal case?
Q4.   What do you think of end results? Do you think if it is worth spending all that money on legal charges etc to get funds back?
Q5.   How long will it take?

I am desperate. 2022 has been a disaster. We have survived a war and stayed in the middle of war ground for 34 days. All this just to find out that we will still lose a family member because of cancer, just because we couldn’t afford to pay for treatment and with millions of dollars stolen.

Any advise will be helpful.

Thanks

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Victoria