If you are the victim of a cryptocurrency theft, you have a very little chance to see your assets again. The Reuters publication examined experts’ opinions on this subject. Security specialists believe that the high level of cryptocurrency crimes is due to the fact that investigators are usually concerned about louder cases, while small investors are left without their attention.
Jaroslav Jakubcek, an analyst at Europol, told Reuters that law enforcement officers often simply do not have enough resources to work on such crimes.
Crypto Aware, a financial research firm that works with victims of crypto fraudsters, estimated that between 2012 and the first half of 2018, 1.7 billion US dollars in cryptocurrency was stolen worldwide, with more than 800 million dollars hacked within the current year. According to a study, about 85% of crimes haven’t even been reported to the police.
Reuters also quotes David Jevans, chief executive at the cybersecurity firm CipherTrace in Menlo Park, California, who claims that only about 20% of the stolen cryptocurrency can be found. He explains that law enforcement officers are forced to follow the protocol. As a result, it takes a lot of time to collect evidence to open a case, and by the time this happens, the money would have been irretrievably lost. The expert noted that the amount of theft has to be huge to justify the effort.
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