My broker demands tax before I can withdraw. What now?

Do not pay. A demand for payment before a withdrawal is a known pattern, and the request itself is a piece of evidence worth keeping.

Can Paucitas establish whether trading actually took place?

Often yes. Where a wallet shows only incoming payments over the whole period, the absence of trading can be recorded as a finding.

Does Paucitas work together with my lawyer?

Yes, and it usually works better that way. We deliver the factual report and your lawyer decides how it is used.

←Back to Questions

Who helps after a scam by a fraudulent crypto broker?

By R.T. (Tyler) Dijst, blockchain investigator at Paucitas

Paucitas helps after a scam by a fraudulent crypto broker by establishing whether the balance in your account ever existed and where your deposits went. You supply your deposits and the details of the broker, we follow the balance and map the platform.

What Paucitas does

With a broker that blocks a withdrawal we look first at the relation between what your dashboard showed and what actually happened on the blockchain. A rising balance on a screen leaves no trace on the chain unless real trades sit behind it, and that difference is measurable.

We then map the platform itself: the age and the registration of the domain, the wallets it used, and the pattern of incoming and outgoing payments on those wallets.

With a fraudulent crypto broker the decisive comparison is between what your dashboard showed and what happened on the chain. A rising balance on a screen leaves no trace unless real trades sit behind it, and that absence is measurable rather than a matter of opinion.

What you supply

You supply the name and the website of the broker, your account details and screenshots of the overview you were shown, the addresses you deposited to, and the messages in which extra costs or taxes were demanded. Those demands are a pattern in themselves and belong in the file.

The messages in which extra costs, fees or taxes were demanded before a withdrawal belong in the file. That demand is a pattern in itself, and it is often the piece that a bank recognises immediately.

Add the age and the registration details of the website if you have them, or simply the address. Much of that can be retrieved from public sources afterwards, but knowing which version of the site you saw saves a round of work.

What you receive

You receive a platform file with four fixed parts: the details of the domain name and where they were found, the wallets the platform used, the route of your own payments to those wallets, and the finding of what did and did not happen to your investment.

The fourth part is the one clients use most. It states in plain language whether trading took place at all, which is the question a bank or a court will ask first.

For readers outside the Netherlands the fourth part of the file is the one that travels best. It states in plain language whether trading took place at all, and that is the question a bank, a lawyer or a court asks first, in any jurisdiction.

Alongside the four parts you receive a short covering text you can use when you submit the file. It names what is enclosed and what it establishes, without arguing your case for you.

How to get started

Send us the name of the broker and a short description of the moment withdrawals stopped. We will tell you what the chain still shows. The contact page is the fastest route, and we are glad to work alongside your own lawyer.

We are glad to work alongside your own lawyer, and in cross border matters that is usually the faster route. We deliver the factual report; your lawyer decides how it is used and where.

Whether a platform is legally qualified as fraudulent is for the competent authorities to decide.

Further reading