"Officer, I really didn't launder money. I just bought some coins...
This was the first sentence Mr. Gao from Fujian said at the police station.
That day, he took his newly received salary and thought about buying some coins for financial management.
As usual, I opened the C2C section of the exchange, found a seller, placed an order, and transferred funds. The process went smoothly. But when I woke up the next day, the nightmare began:
His WeChat balance was frozen, his salary card couldn't be used, and he couldn't even pay his children's tuition. Even more outrageous, it wasn't the police in Fuzhou who froze his account, but the police in Guangdong.
Mr. Gao was completely stunned.
The money is clean, so why is it being “caught in the crossfire”?
Many people think that they are conducting legitimate transactions and the source of funds is fine, so how could they be targeted?
But the police’s logic in investigating cases is different from that of ordinary people.
They don't first check whether you are innocent, but instead cut off all links along the "capital chain".
The seller Mr. Gao bought the cryptocurrency from had just received a fraudulent sum of money three days earlier. To prevent the outflow of funds, the police will freeze the accounts of all those who had financial transactions with him.
It's like you go to a supermarket to buy a bottle of water, and it turns out that the supermarket sold fake goods the day before, so you are dragged into the same situation.
The real torture is that after freezing, the road to thaw is more difficult than imagined.
Mr. Gao prepared a stack of materials: screenshots of the order, transfer receipts, chat records with the seller, a copy of his ID card, and a three-page statement of the situation.
But these cannot be submitted online, you have to go to the police station in Guangdong in person.
I spent over 1,000 or 2,000 yuan on a high-speed rail hotel. When I got to the local police station, the officer simply replied, "Wait for further notice."
For months, he couldn't withdraw his money, his mortgage was nearly overdue, and his family was arguing daily about money. Mr. Gao said those days were more difficult than being in prison.
He summed it up in four sentences
Later, the account was finally unfrozen, but Mr. Chen completely changed his perception of the cryptocurrency world.
He said: No matter how cheap, no private transactions will be made; every order, transfer, and chat will be recorded;
Once you find any abnormality in the other party's account, report it immediately; only deal with stable and old merchants, and don't be greedy for small profits.
He finally said something that left a lasting impression on me:
“The biggest fear in cryptocurrency trading isn’t losing money, but having your account frozen. That’s when you realize the money isn’t yours.”
There are many opportunities in the cryptocurrency world, but security awareness is the bottom line for whether you can keep your money.
