Bitfinex locked my 500 BTC account and is asking for police report

[whyisthishappening]

bitfinex asked me to do a complete verification after I lost access to my account a while ago.
I submitted all my documents and got verified.

my account contains over 500+ BTC ,acquired a couple years ago.
I have full access to my electrum wallet where all incoming transfers were issued from.

now they sent me the following by email:


*************************************************************************
Hello 'my name'
....
Please provide a police report for the compromised Bitfinex account and compromised email address. If you do not have this, you will need to file one still. Send us the report and the contact details of the responsible Law Enforcement investigator.

Please disable the VPN connection and access your account using your own internet connection.

We will need you to have your ID documents verified by a Notary Public. The Notary Public has to verify your identity, and he or she needs to provide a signed and dated statement in which he or she will confirm:
1). Your full name, date of birth, and place of birth.
2). Your current address.
3). That, the person appearing before her or him, is the same person as an official ID / Passport is presented for;
4). That the Passport / ID presented is authentic and valid.
5) That the document is provided in order to confirm you are the owner of Bitfinex account xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx

The document will need to contain the contact details of the Notary Public. Send a scanned version of the notarial document in an attachment in a reply to this email.

If you used cash to purchase the BTC, we will need to receive a proof of source of funds for the funds used to purchase the BTC.
A proof of sources of funds is any (collection of) document(s) that explains the origin of funds used for purchases of crypto currencies.

Examples of acceptable forms of documentary evidence are detailed below:

Personal savings

   Personal bank statement(s) demonstrating deposit/gifted monies

Employment income

   Personal bank statement(s) demonstrating deposit monies, wages and tax statement

Gift or inheritance from a third party

   Documentary evidence from the donor (bank statement), copy of will

Sale of investments

   Statement from investment provider or bank statement showing settlement from investment provider

Sale of property

   Signed letter from Solicitor/Advocate or Estate Agent or Contract of Sale statement

Loan

   Loan agreement or statement

Insurance Claims

   Letter from Insurance provider

Dividends or profit from the company

   Latest audited company accounts statement

Lottery/Gambling win

   Evidence from the lottery company/winning receipt

Cryptocurrency mining    Details on the mining pool used combined with blockchain transaction IDs and addresses that confirm when the assets were mined.

Please provide a full description of Blockchain Transaction IDs of the individual purchases and addresses of where the purchased BTC were received on. Provide transaction IDs and addresses that describe exactly how the BTC bought with cash were transferred from the original addresses up to the point they were deposited to Bitfinex.

Kind regards,

xxxxx
Bitfinex.com
support@bitfinex.com


*************************************************************************





-I can file a police report and get my documents notarized
-the 500 BTC were acquired a couple years ago
-they were deposited 2015 into bitfinex
-bitfinex account , wanted to use it only to sell&buy BTC online, no bank withdraws
-I also used funds from my friends to buy bitcoins with cash locally
-I did not use localbitcoins to buy my bitcoins with cash.
I went to a local bar here where bitcoiners met occasionally.

the difficult part is how I can prove the cash I used was obtained legitimately,if I also took money
from friends to buy BTC with cash?

I have access to my electrum wallet and to the transactions I did years ago
but no papers about cash withdraws and my friends investments...

[1715383955]

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[Don Pedro Dinero]

How much fiat money did you spend exactly? If the origin of your funds was legit, you shouldn’t have problems proving it.

The problem is, at current prices, 500 BTC are worth $3.4 million.

That happens to you for relying on an exchange. Best thing is to have your funds in your hardware wallet and send small amounts to exchanges to trade or to convert to fiat.

It is hard to believe for me that your story is true, but if it is true, you must be loaded man! If you had so much money in bitcoin, that means you must have a lot of money in fiat also, unless you are an idiot.

[btc-facebook]

It's reasonable to happen especially when bitcoin consider as expensive assets at the moment.
So you sign message with the address that you're using to send the transaction..
It's already long time but why you just claim it now,?

[Jating]

It looks like that Bitfinex just wanted to make sure that you are the real owners of the account because that one fucking amount dude. One question though, how did you lose access to the account though? Or did you totally forgotten about it? I mean you just let it sit there? That's a dangerous thing to do I must say, why haven't you transferred it to a wallet like Electrum since you already have one?

I don't want to do that math but if you have 500 BTC and you have exchange it last December that's a ton shit of money mate. Just saying. I guess you have no choice but to comply with them, what they are asking can be provided by you isn't it? So make your move today instead of complaining so that you can get everything and let this be a lesson to you to have it in a hard wallet at least because its really a lot of money.

[countryfree]

Just one question: are you a liar or an a**hole?

You don't imagine how careful big BTC holders are with their keys and passwords.

[Sithara007]

You are such an experienced user (made the investment in 2015), and still kept more than 500 BTC in an exchange wallet? What would have happened if Bitfinex was hacked and the coins were stolen? Now coming back to the topic, I don't think that their demands are unjustified. A lot of hacks are happening now and they are being cautious. Just prove your ownership and get back access to your coins.

[stomachgrowls]

~snip~

I have seen this on another thread why would need to be posted again to this board?It isnt really necessary.

Just one question: are you a liar or an a**hole?

You don't imagine how careful big BTC holders are with their keys and passwords.

This is the big question which i cant even believe that a certain holder of hundreds of bitcoins would really be careless or dumb enough to forget log-in credentials which do have lots of bitcoins inside it. Its normal for them to ask and required such things to know if you are the actual owner or not.

[Lieldoryn]

This confirms the fact that it is impossible to store a large number of bitcoins on the exchange. The main reserves should be stored in a personal offline wallet. Exchanges should be used only for those amounts that you transfer to Fiat. Even income from trading can not be stored on the exchange. The recent kidnapping of the Director of the exchange EXMO was also associated with the same problem.

[Sithara007]

This confirms the fact that it is impossible to store a large number of bitcoins on the exchange. The main reserves should be stored in a personal offline wallet. Exchanges should be used only for those amounts that you transfer to Fiat. Even income from trading can not be stored on the exchange. The recent kidnapping of the Director of the exchange EXMO was also associated with the same problem.

It is quite risky to keep the coins in an exchange wallet, but the day traders don't have any other option. Unless you are using a decentralized exchange, you can't do day trading without the coins in your exchange wallet. One of the reason why I hate day trading.

[QuynhVu2302]

oh men, you put a lot of money on the trading floor, that is your big mistake. I think we should only order at most 10BTC on the exchange, only the large amount we should store in the wallet.

[jseverson]

How exactly did you lose access to your account though? Did you purchase your Bitcoins through Bitfinex, or did you simply store them there?

What baffles me is that you had access to Electrum, which is infinitely better for keeping a large amount than any online exchange/wallet.

I can't really estimate how much money you spent accumulating those, but it was basically worth around $300 then right? That would mean you would have to prove that you have or did have access to $150,000, which shouldn't be too much of a problem if you were really the owner of the account. And if you are truly the rightful owner and are finding it hard to deal with them, it might be best to consult a lawyer.

[audaciousbeing]

The simple truth is that you are now at their mercy and there is no amount of suggestions and recommendations that can change that position unless you do what is required of you. If you have been able to verify your account, then every other thing required should not be a problem but I doubt you not parting away with huge amount of money if you want to follow through. My advice is to get a lawyer who will then liaise with every party involved both the police and bitfinex to get your funds out.

Truth be told, your conduct has fallen below expectation because to have that amount of btc means you have been involved for a quite a while and that means some level of knowledge on not keeping such funds with a third party and not because of hack that might happen alone but because of policy changes like this which you have fallen victim of. Having an hardware wallet of less than a $1000 would have saved all of this trouble.

[warrior333]

This confirms the fact that it is impossible to store a large number of bitcoins on the exchange. The main reserves should be stored in a personal offline wallet. Exchanges should be used only for those amounts that you transfer to Fiat. Even income from trading can not be stored on the exchange. The recent kidnapping of the Director of the exchange EXMO was also associated with the same problem.

It is quite risky to keep the coins in an exchange wallet, but the day traders don't have any other option. Unless you are using a decentralized exchange, you can't do day trading without the coins in your exchange wallet. One of the reason why I hate day trading.

I think that the problems do not arise in day traders. You will agree with me strange to ask about the origin of the coins if they were all earned on the exchange. I think it's the problem of those who gets the coins to the exchange. 500 btc is a big sum and there are always those who want to take away this money. For this reason, I never got on the exchange more than 1 btc.

[Kloosterboer]

One more story wuch proves the statement "don't believe to an exchanger, they don't give a f..k and want to rob you"
Wish you all the best and hope you'll solve the problem

[Kingofbitcoin12345]

Nothing gonna change.. You made a big mistakes storing a huge amount of BTC in an exchange that is even in criticism and undergo a reputation overhaul.. I’m not bitfinex user,, but this is just one of the procedure that is required in verification and validation purposes.. If you have nothing to hide from police authority then it would be just an easy thing to do..

But if your anonymity is much important then you balance it out,, 500BTC is a huge number.. Now your be prone to corruption and your security will be compromised as police mafia will hunt you down.. In many cases..