The Second Theft

This client was robbed twice. First by Winstom Trading ↗, a fake platform that froze his withdrawal. Then, weeks later, by a “recovery agent” who found him at his lowest, guaranteed to get it all back, and asked for an upfront fee. We take this archetype personally — the second theft is the one we exist to stop.

Last Known Position

Tane is thirty-nine, a logistics coordinator in Auckland. He put $23,700 into Winstom Trading after a slick online pitch, watched the dashboard grow, and hit the usual wall when he tried to withdraw — a “release fee” he sensibly refused to pay. He wrote the money off. That should have been the end of it.

It was not. Weeks later, a “fund recovery specialist” contacted him directly, claiming to already know about Winstom Trading and to have recovered for “other victims.” They knew details. They were convincing. They asked for a $4,500 upfront “court bond” to begin.

Point of No Return

He paid it. Recovery scammers harvest victim lists from the first fraud, which is how they knew his story — and a guaranteed result plus an upfront fee is the entire tell. When they asked for a second “disbursement fee,” he stopped and found us. We do not charge upfront fees to trace, and we said so first.

They knew exactly what happened to me. I thought that meant they were real. It just meant they had the list.

Recovery Track

1. Treat it as two cases

   We separated the Winstom Trading loss from the recovery-scam fee — different operators, different rails, different windows — and worked each on its own merits.

2. Chase the fresher trail

   The $4,500 recovery-scam fee was only weeks old. We traced that USDT first, while it was still consolidating, to an exchange deposit address.

3. Reopen the original

   Winstom Trading’s collector wallets had pooled victim funds. A portion of Tane’s original deposit was still identifiable in a cluster that had not fully cashed out.

4. File on both

   We submitted two documented traces and victim reports — one for the recovery-scam exchange deposit, one for the Winstom cluster — with a referral covering the double fraud.

5. Recover across both hits

   The recovery-scam fee was largely frozen and returned; a partial slice of the original Winstom loss came back from the cluster. Combined, it reached the majority of his total.

Warning Lights

• No legitimate recovery service guarantees results or asks for an upfront fee to begin.
• A “recovery agent” who already knows your scam details got them from a victim list, not from credibility.
• Being a known victim makes you a target for the second fraud — expect the follow-up contact.
• Real tracing earns its place by showing you the chain, not by promising miracles.
• Verify any recovery firm independently before sending a cent — the second theft is preventable.