My friend got arrested in a p2p scam

[bitterguy28]

The only big problem here is that your country prohibit the use of Crypto but other than that i think there is no really issue here instead your friend is very confident in dealing without assessing whom he is having a transaction.

you should not afraid of using p2p though if there is other option then just stay away in this kind of transaction .

[dansus021]

damnn so th eproblem maybe is from p2p the man who gives the cash through the bank, why not using your account and do the transcation rather to choose p2p.

maybe this be one reason Binance upgrade their sytem and need to do KYC

[lixer]

Was your friend charged for transacting with BTC or was it just the hacking case? That part of your story wasn't clear to me. What kind of ban was issued in your country? Was it issued by your Central bank?

The funds he received were illegal or hacked transactions and then he had to provide all the details to the cyber officials which revealed that he sold BTC and selling/buying BTC is illegal in his nation. That's what I have understood so far from this case.

I had a friend who was called for a P2P deal in person for cash and then he was robbed and injured when he went to the place for the deal. And he can't even register a complaint against the person because he was someone unknown guy at LocalBitcoins and there was no proof that he was scammed. And if he tells police that he was robbed of cash, they would instead file a case against him for money laundering rather than catching the scammer.

[Kakmakr]

The moment when these transactions hit the Fiat system, where all the KYC regulations are required... you can run into trouble. The people who actually do the crime.. will look for ways to move those "dirty" bitcoins through platforms where they will not be detected. Your friend was part of that chain and he got burnt when he wanted to "cash out" through the Bank. 

We do not know if the bitcoins we receive or send, might be tainted.... so the moment when it goes through a platform where someone can be targeted.. then everything goes wrong very quickly. 

[tygeade]

I read the entire story and feel really bad for your friend. There are so many scammers who use hacked funds or carded funds to cheap innocent traders and to make matters worse, bitcoin is illegal in your friend's country.

To anyone reading this post, I have a simple solution for those who want to cash their Bitcoins without actually revealing their identity or getting scammed.

So, you make an account at PayPal and verify it normally.

Then you find a TRUSTED seller (be very careful, PayPal can be reversed) and sell them your Bitcoins

You get PayPal which can be easily withdrawn to bank accounts without any problems.

In the worst case, a chargeback is opened against you, then you won't get into legal problems at least because you can solve it within PayPal itself.

[TheGreatPython]

What an awful situation your friend find himself, see everything that has advantage also have disadvantage, people see p2p as one of the best decentralized way to trade crypto without kyc, imagine the massive situation, such kind of things cannot happen with centralized exchange. I feel sorry for the poor guy who is caught in the middle of this.

I do feel the same and I can feel the pain that guy must have went through because a few years ago I was struggling in life and I started freelancing work online. Trust me, people want your blood when they pay a few dollars so it's not easy earning money. After you somehow manage to earn this money there are retards who will cheat you in such brutal manner.

I hope your friend gets out of this problem Imran and help him find better buyers for bitcoins next time. You are part of the forum and you must be aware of some legit buyers and worth checking the local boards once.

[iTradeChips]

The only detail that made me interested in checking further the story is the fact that your friend does not trust KYC and therefore did not have that chance to try the P2P feature on Binance. Of course, there are certain requirements that you need to ensure that you do before you will be allowed to sell or buy crypto but that is not the point, the point is he selected anonymity instead of KYC which is mandatory for legit businesses in our country. All our crypto related businesses require KYC and I am not breaking laws so no point going anonymous. Sorry for your friends loss, he better have a good defense counsel in case his case goes to court.

[Yogee]

Was your friend charged for transacting with BTC or was it just the hacking case? That part of your story wasn't clear to me. What kind of ban was issued in your country? Was it issued by your Central bank?

The funds he received were illegal or hacked transactions and then he had to provide all the details to the cyber officials which revealed that he sold BTC and selling/buying BTC is illegal in his nation. That's what I have understood so far from this case.

Those parts were clear to me. What I'm asking is if the authorities filed another case against his friend after revealing the nature of the actual transaction since he claims that BTC is illegal. It appears that the friend was only charged with hacking.

[5thFear]

My friend .... Please share your story.

Man,.. i know what happened as i have gone through this. I won't share my story as it might get me in trouble. But what i have learnt from that is that always trade with the person who has the same name on bank account and on the p2p trading site. Don't accept payment from third person on his behalf.

This is exactly what happened. Your friend accepted payment from 3rd person and sent the bitcoin/ether to the 1st person.
Your friend was made to believe that he is receiving payments from 3rd person and that 1st person and 3rd person are doing business and ur friend is just a transaction medium between them. So he has nothing to worry about.

[pawanjain]

Was your friend charged for transacting with BTC or was it just the hacking case? That part of your story wasn't clear to me. What kind of ban was issued in your country? Was it issued by your Central bank?

...It would have been better if he would have used some local exchange which supports their native currency.

The friend could have made a deal with Imran to sell the BTC for him since he knows better and just need to pay a small service fee.

That is one possibility but on the other hand he could himself been a victim to the same scam.
We can never know that the money we receive from P2P transactions is coming from a genuine source or not.
In this case, it was difficult to determine that the incoming transaction was from a hacked account.
So I guess the same could have happened to anybody. It could have happened with the best of us.

[AakZaki]

As of now, I also use the binance P2P services and not other p2p platforms. I feel more confident using this platform. For other p2p services, you don't know if their reviews or feedback are genuine. So you should really be very cautious transacting them as in this digital age, everyone can pull off a scheme as they don't care who they screwed, but the money that they can milk out.

Binance's p2p platform is trusted and has become the main p2p today compared to others.
I am using binance p2p since it was first launched. and i am also an official p2p trader on binance.
Binance is safer because it is required to apply KYC to conduct p2p transactions and if there is a problem with the transaction, everything will be resolved properly.

[oHnK]

if talking about the scam that your friend has experienced until he goes to jail, I also a few days ago almost had the same problem but this hasn't happened yet.  During my time on Bitcointalk, I rarely used pm for personal matters and suddenly 1 notification appeared in pm from a newbie with the content "Please reply to my message quickly, this is important" and I ignored it because I didn't know him.  Two days later, another newbie pm me with the content "are you oHnK in the telegram with the username xxxx".  I was immediately shocked by the contents of the newbie pm because there were people who were impersonating.  I immediately replied, "it's not me, and if he asks for money or anything don't ever give it" then the newbie replied immediately "he borrowed money using your name, and will provide a guarantee in the form of a Bitcointalk oHnK account

[uneng]

I think p2p transactions should be only made if you trust the other person. To transact like this with unknown, strange people it's too dangerous and it's not uncommon to end in a bad way. It would be better if your friend had used a middleman service at least to conduct this transaction safely. Also, someone dealing with crypto currency in a daily basis and sticking to it in order to earn a monthly income added to the fact your country doesn't accept bitcoin legally won't end well. Sooner or later your friend would face an issue with the local authorities for this reason. To move abroad to a bitcoin friendly country would be a good choice.

[Issa56]

Waw this is very surprising another experience again lot's of people are just out there after your money which is very bad. Seriously whenever am using P2P am always scared I believe there are lot's of scammers there but I believe it will be very nice if you can include the website name here so that everybody will be careful whenever they are using the website.

[DoublerHunter]

As of now, I also use the binance P2P services and not other p2p platforms. I feel more confident using this platform. For other p2p services, you don't know if their reviews or feedback are genuine. So you should really be very cautious transacting them as in this digital age, everyone can pull off a scheme as they don't care who they screwed, but the money that they can milk out.

Binance's p2p platform is trusted and has become the main p2p today compared to others.
I am using binance p2p since it was first launched. and i am also an official p2p trader on binance.
Binance is safer because it is required to apply KYC to conduct p2p transactions and if there is a problem with the transaction, everything will be resolved properly.

^ Any P2P will probably have a chance to freeze your money at the bank, at the very first beginning, OP said that BTC is strictly prohibited don their place, but why does Op still accept the offer as a trade. It is risky on your part and OP will be aught and the one who receives your BTC will fully anymous. There are too many factors that we must be careful always when the money that we deposit on our bank is connected to BTC activity, authorities will always have suspected if they will found out that your money was connected to BTC transaction. Nevertheless, p2p is good but it depend on how it will use.

[Yamifoud]

I think p2p transactions should be only made if you trust the other person. To transact like this with unknown, strange people it's too dangerous and it's not uncommon to end in a bad way. It would be better if your friend had used a middleman service at least to conduct this transaction safely. Also, someone dealing with crypto currency in a daily basis and sticking to it in order to earn a monthly income added to the fact your country doesn't accept bitcoin legally won't end well. Sooner or later your friend would face an issue with the local authorities for this reason. To move abroad to a bitcoin friendly country would be a good choice.

The online transaction like P2P was too risky and probably we are aware of that. I don't think if it is a need for a middleman but still, it never guarantees that a scam never happens as these scammers are too smart than most of us. That is why I'd never use P2P but instead, I used trusted exchanges. If that is only available at their place, I think that person never uses P2P but just because it was illegal in their place, it has become a big issue for the bank.

[eaLiTy]

~
Now I feel worried about whether it is truly safe to use P2P. If we fall for such a kind of scam, Though I still didn't and I always verified and 100+ order completed people plus checked his review and 100% review gained people. And I want to know if you guys have any such experience on p2p? Please share your story.

Rule number one is to look for users with more than 100 verified transaction and it is always better to look for sites that require full KYC, if not you will face issues like this and it is a big headache if it is large amount of money from hacked accounts. I went through similar situation in Paxful or similar platform which i do not remember exactly a few yeas back and the bank called me after a few weeks to inquire as part of an investigation about the transaction because i received money from an compromised account.  

Since i had a good reputation with the bank and local authorities, the matter is sorted with one phone call as part of that investigation when i explained them about how that transaction happened and that is a lesson i learned from my experience and i stopped dealing with strangers nor doing P2P transactions in paxful or LBC.

[The Cryptovator]

That's the real concern during buying or selling Bitcoin peer to peer. Actually, it's not possible to determine bank transactions either it has been coming from any suspicious sources. The only way is a peer-to-peer deal should be done with a trusted person and we should get help from an experienced person. Of course, user ratings and feedback are something that we should notice before do peer to peer deals on any platform. I have seen many stories like your friends, they caught in the same way as well. Better if you can build a peer-to-peer network among your country and area with a few trusted people. That's what we have and I sell this way. So there are less chances to catch this way.

[tabas]

Damn, that reversal in transaction. That's why whenever I'm transacting online, I make sure that it won't from a p2p deal and if I do, it's from the exchanges.
I feel bad for your friend and as well you because you seem to be worried what if your friend started to talk about you to the police that you also own it.

[Ararbermas]

That's why it's always good to have KYC when it comes making transactions just to assure your safe from scammer.. Although your information is visible at least your safe and no matter what happen you have proof and identification as well everytime you make transactions with other people.
The sad thing with that freelancer is he used bitcoin for the transaction even though it's prohibited in his country. Wherein even he convinced that it was from the scammer he still have violation..