Don't wait till you get home

[obuoma]

What you narrated in this story is the right thing to do for any smart person to avoid losses. The moment you suspect that your Bitcoin wallet have been compromised, you don't have to wait till you get home, simply move those coins to a safe place that you can easily access at the moment and when you are settled you can begin thinking of a better alternative. However, if I were in that situation, I will not go for Trust wallet, rather I will go for Electrum that is open source and has better security features. Trust wallet is not as safe and secured as Electrum so it will be painful to be exposed to risk while evading risk.

[yudi09]

After the cop left he instantly installed trust wallet on his phone and move all his fund from the hardware wallet to the trust wallet, I asked him why and he said what if the camera on them captured his recovery seed already? What if they step away from him to get the recovery seed captured?

It was when it all makes sense to me, it is possible that after they drove off they will try to drain the wallet, he doesn't wait to get to my place before he moved all the bitcoin out to a hot wallet.

One oddity in this story lies in your cousin's move of assets from a hardware wallet to a trust wallet. This is a wrong move. How could valuable assets, initially stored in a safe with proven security, be spontaneously moved to a wooden cabinet with a key?

If you only have a variety of assets, there should be better options than a trust wallet, and why choose a trust wallet? You need to explain something to him so he doesn't feel confused.

[Asiska02]

If you are from a country with high level of insecurity you need to be very smart.

Something happened to my cousin yesterday, some cop stopped him on his way coming to my house.

He had his hardware wallet on him and they forced him to unlock it.
That one thing that hardware wallet does right is the ability to not show balance straight up.

Are cops now the main cause of insecurity in a country, aren’t they suppose to control insecurity and provide security to the people. If cops act like this all over the world, then there will be no need for them to protect the people but rather extort from the people. Is owning bitcoin illegal in your country that a cop search could warrant them forcefully collecting your coins? Or intriguing into your privacy?

After the cop left he instantly installed trust wallet on his phone and move all his fund from the hardware wallet to the trust wallet, I asked him why and he said what if the camera on them captured his recovery seed already? What if they step away from him to get the recovery seed captured?

I don’t think those cops know anything about hardware wallets or else they would have known how to get into the wallet and even check the recovery seed phrase with their camera capturing it while recording your friend secretly. He should have done better and not have it moved to a porous wallet not as good as the hardware wallet the money was in initially. I hope he moved the funds to a safer wallet because trust wallet is not the safest for him.

[Hyphen(-)]

I don’t think those cops know anything about hardware wallets or else they would have known how to get into the wallet and even check the recovery seed phrase with their camera capturing it while recording your friend secretly. He should have done better and not have it moved to a porous wallet not as good as the hardware wallet the money was in initially. I hope he moved the funds to a safer wallet because trust wallet is not the safest for him.

Is it even safe to move around with your hardware wallet that you can keep safe at home?

I don't seem to believe this story because how did the narrator have access to his seed phrase immediately to put it in another wallet and send out the money immediately? That means he has the seed phrase with him on his phone saved or in his email, as the case may be, which is not safe as well.
Moreover, moving the funds to Trust Wallet is not also safe because Trust Wallet is a closed-source wallet; he should have considered Electrum Wallet or BlueWallet since he can get the mobile version of these wallets, and they are safer since they are all open-source wallets.

Going everywhere with our seed phrase is not safe; you can be attacked and might lose it in the process, which means your money is gone; therefore, always keep your seed phrase off your phone and keep it in a safe place to avoid losing Bitcoin easily.

[mcdouglasx]

What I don't understand is why the police officer had the authority to ask him to unlock his hardware. I think he could have refused, or the officer simply thought it was a mobile device, or didn't understand how to use it. But it can happen in corrupt countries that the police themselves break the law. I think they could easily have taken his funds if that had been their intention. I think he was mostly lucky that it was just police curiosity and not an extortion attempt, but I also don't understand why he had his hardware with him in the street. At least I would go out with a temporary card that doesn't contain all the funds.

[Smartprofit]

That's why I don't really trust hardware wallets. 🙋

If a stranger sees you have a hardware wallet, they'll know you're a Bitcoin holder. Bitcoin holders are seen as easy targets by criminals. What can you do against a heavily armed police officer, with an equally armed partner, and fully protected by the law? In fact, you can't do anything against him! He could take you to the police station and torture you there... Or he could claim you physically resisted him (which, by the way, is a criminal offense)... Or he could plant drugs on you...

Therefore, in my opinion, people shouldn't use hardware wallets. People should use other (alternative) ways to store their Bitcoin. A hardware wallet is too visible and recognizable! No one should know you're a Bitcoin holder.

[ZAINmalik75]

Being from a country where such things can happen to anyone, I can totally understand the situation and what the guy must have gone through. Cops and other fources are generally supposed to keep the public safe, but in some countries, it's actually the opposite because of corruption, you may be safer if a thief is following you than a cop stopping you when you are going somewhere, especially if it's night or the later part of the night when the roads are mostly empty. It's a shameful truth, cops that are corrupt to the core can do anything, they can take bribe from you by threatening you to put you behind the bars by making some kind of excuse only to scare you, so they can surely do something like this.

However, there is one thing though, mostly when cops are corrupt, they are also not very educated, which means they will barely know how they can import a wallet using the seed phrase and take the assets out unless they are crypto users which is mostly unlikely, but still, it's better to be cautious than to be regretful, so the guy did the right thing. Those who are saying he shouldn't have used Trust Wallet need to understand that it doesn't matter if he's doing that just as a quick precaution to save his assets, he will obviously take them out of it again since he is a hardware wallet user he obviously knows the importance of non-custodial wallets.

[Agathamay]

Sorry, but this story seems very unrealistic to me. It would have been more logical for me if he had been using the Trust wallet until then, but after anyone touched his phone, he decided to urgently transfer the coins to another wallet.
Now I'm curious, which hardware wallet is it that is easy to unlock and displays the seed phrase, while at the same time not displaying the amounts in the addresses?

Well, we cat totally say that op is lying but sincerely the story doesn't seem as realistic as it was supposed to but regardless let's just assume his telling the truth and just catch the message from the whole story which is safety and security.
I don't also know why he hard to carry his hardware wallet around or didn't him think of the possibilities of the device getting misplaced or stolen?
Let's just say it's another remember to stay safe at all times be it online or offline

[Marvelockg]

He had his hardware wallet on him and they forced him to unlock it.
That one thing that hardware wallet does right is the ability to not show balance straight up.

does the law permits security personnel to forcefully gain access to someone's else's phone? isn't such act worthy of being looked at as an act of theft and it anything goes missing, it is possible to file a case against them because they were the last to forcefully gain access to your device. transferring your from an hardwallet to trust wallet is almost like you are moving from frying pan to fire because hardware wallet is safer than wallets like  trust wallet.

we know that the police can most times overdo and considering that such event  can even happen that thieves actually apprehend you and can forcefully transfer funds from you, it is even safer not to move around with things that relates to your hard wallet or that sends a pointer that you holding some amount of coin.

[lionheart78]

I don't see what your friend did as an act of smartness. If he was smart, he would have known that carrying his hardware wallet around was a big risk, especially since he had no urgent need to transact. That was his first mistake, and if anything had happened to his coins, he should hold himself responsible.

Aside from that where the hell thus these cops know that his friend is carrying a hardware wallet?  Why did they frisk the person and ask for the item to be scrutinized when there is no warrant at all?  Unless his friend has some story of something that makes it easier for the cops to do whatever they wanted to do with the person.

Although he may have done the right thing by moving his funds quickly after suspecting that his wallet had been compromised, this would not have happened if he had not been carrying the device around.

I think the person (@OP's cousin) is paranoid, he just unlocked his harware wallet, just the password not the private key or seed phrases has been recorded if there is a recording cam with the police.  There is actually no need to move the fund since the password alone cannot access the fund of the wallet that is in the hardware wallet.

[bhadz]

This story can happen in real life but with how OP told it, many can't believe into it. But let's take the lesson from this story that the person involved is still lucky that he's alive. Because with a lot of these crimes and violations related to crypto, they're doing brutal things to the owner of these cryptos that they know have hefty amount in their holdings. So, it all leads how these criminals know that a person holds it. It's either they're too vocal about it and they have been showy to social media, so stop the cause and remain silent in your real life. Don't be too proud sharing how much you own.

[ColdLava40]

A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

Sounds like a story telling but it's possible to happen in real life.

I would think he has a large amount of coins in  his hardware wallet and though safety first, but trust wallet should be anyone's last option to transfer a reasonable amount of funds into. It's a bit complicated.

Another problem I'm having with your friend is why he decided to !or around with his storage device? This happened to some one sometimes ago, but not his hardware wallet. He had his hand written seed phrase with, got napped by the cops and they ha cameras on them.

We know what happened after that.

[KingsDen]

Sorry, but this story seems very unrealistic to me. It would have been more logical for me if he had been using the Trust wallet until then, but after anyone touched his phone, he decided to urgently transfer the coins to another wallet.
Now I'm curious, which hardware wallet is it that is easy to unlock and displays the seed phrase, while at the same time not displaying the amounts in the addresses?

This is where my confusion started.
Is hardware wallet always unlocked with the seed phrase? If yes, this is where we can say that the seed phrase was exposed. But since the answer is no, the real question is how was the seed phrase exposed?

Why the option of a close source wallet. I can understand that it is a temporary measure to save his bitcoin. But I believe that police will easily ask to unlock a phone and the wallet therein and not to unlock a hardware wallet.

[Felicity_Tide]

does the law permits security personnel to forcefully gain access to someone's else's phone? isn't such act worthy of being looked at as an act of theft and it anything goes missing, it is possible to file a case against them because they were the last to forcefully gain access to your device.

You probably don't live in a country where accountability means nothing to the government and people that enforces it. There are even extreme cases of physical assault or death threats. Some cops can be unprofessional and they often find ways to get away with all their actions. And as for the OP's story, I don't seem to understand why people aren't helping themselves when it comes to reducing every possible risk to their funds. Living in a country where even the cops can be a danger, you just don't want to take any chances. Moreover, it's always advisable to have your hardware wallet with major funds in a more secure place, rather than moving around with it.

[Hazink]

Of all the Bitcoin wallet trust wallet is what he chose to download? What happens to other recommended bitcoin wallet, out there, which I believe someone with a hardware wallet should have minimal knowledge of the best bitcoin wallet?

Then again, downloading a new wallet under such tension could lead to a mistake in downloading a fake wallet, because you don't have the time to verify the wallet if it's original of one of those cloned ones posted on app stores.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

After the cop left he instantly installed trust wallet on his phone and move all his fund from the hardware wallet to the trust wallet, I asked him why and he said what if the camera on them captured his recovery seed already? What if they step away from him to get the recovery seed captured?

It was when it all makes sense to me, it is possible that after they drove off they will try to drain the wallet, he doesn't wait to get to my place before he moved all the bitcoin out to a hot wallet.

A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

It's actually good to know that your brother was smart enough to not reveal the true and exact money he had in his Bitcoin wallet while been interrogated by the corrupt police officers. And secondly, I thought when logging into a wallet, what he needed was just a password and not a seed phrase, or unless if he was force to open the settings of the Bitcoin wallet and revealed the seed phrase on it. Because that's the only time it could make sense. However, if I was in his shoes, I wouldn't have transferred my Bitcoin to "Trust wallet" which is also another popular Bitcoin wallet, as I would have chose either Electrum or Unstoppable Bitcoin wallet that are not very popular.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

What marvelled me a lot is how and why cops will have to force someone into opening his private wallet, what exactly are they looking for, it's a theft process done by the cop on your cousin even if they did not capture with any camera. The step taking towards any citizens to open their private financial app isn't proper.

So if they find out there is a balance that's bigger, what will they do. Arrest the citizens for having such amount in his private crypto wallet? Or question the source of the funds? On what ground that should occur. To explain the source of funds, that's bullshit.

To be frank, it I was your cousin, I wouldn't dare to unlock my private financial app to anyone, No, I won't.

[retreat]

Regardless of whether this story is fabricated or not, there's a lesson we can learn from this case that you shouldn't carry your hardware wallet around with you, as you never know if you might be involved in an accident or some other unfortunate event. It's best to leave your hardware wallet in a secure location and only access it when you absolutely need it. This way, you'll reduce the chances of your assets being at risk if the unexpected happens.

[Orpichukwu]

Regardless of whether this story is fabricated or not, there's a lesson we can learn from this case that you shouldn't carry your hardware wallet around with you, as you never know if you might be involved in an accident or some other unfortunate event. It's best to leave your hardware wallet in a secure location and only access it when you absolutely need it. This way, you'll reduce the chances of your assets being at risk if the unexpected happens.

And in this story we can't tell if the person on the op was coming back from travel or just stepped out. If I'm just within the city, I don't see a need to travel with my wallet, but if it's a case of travelling outside and I will spend a long time before coming back, I will choose to travel with it but not in an exposed or easy-to-see manner, for spending we should have a hot wallet with little money on it, which, even if it gets exposed somehow, our real holdings remain safe.

[Faisal2202]

Is there a law that forces you to open your device wallet to the police? And why would your friend be carrying around a device wallet?

Generally, there's a passphrase feature where you can add a hidden wallet containing your balance, while letting the seed open a wallet with $100 or less.

His story does not add up, I think his friend did share the story but he failed to catch up on the exact details. Anyway, speaking of law forces, in my country a simple traffic police could stop you and they will take your ID and smartphone with them, they won't open it, but if their intentions are not right they could ask the owner to open the smartphones.

See in our country we have registered and non registered smartphones, so when they find a non registered they could fine that person more, but it is not that it is illegal to carry a non registered phone, it is completely legal and optional but some people are too smart they want to dodge the laws, so what they do they swap IMEIs and change the registration from another model, so if they get caught they are charged with a fine.

Anyway, the point was, they could stop you, take your phone, and maybe by force they could check it like it is their own. I have heard different stories from people who said the police checked their phones unlocked everything like the phone belongs to them, although they are not supposed to do that but they still do it anyway.