Here's a little PSA: beware who you're dealing with on localbitcoins.com. Here's my story with a tldr.
In September and October, I sold 200 BTC (gradually) to some random guy on localbitcoins. Everything went fine, each time I got the money, I sent the bitcoins. 5 days after the last transaction, I get a phone call from my bank, they want to talk about the terms of my life insurance, "what's the most convenient time for me to go there", we plan a small meeting for the next day.
The next day I go to the bank, and 4 police officers are waiting for me! "Would you please follow us to the police station?" "Sure." I get a full body search, we go to the police station, and I get interrogated for 10 hours. "Where does this money come from?" I explain about bitcoins, localbitcoins, and the random guy, they take my phone to analyse my emails and check my story. Once they were sure that the guy contacted me and not the other way around, I was finally free to go, but all my bank accounts were frozen. Impossible to deposit or withdraw until the investigation is closed. Later they told me that the money that ended in my account was stolen and they thought I was doing money laundering.
Now after almost 3 months my bank accounts are still frozen, and after some back and forth the police is basically asking me to send back the money. I would gladly do that if the random guy would send me my bitcoins back, but of course that won't happen. If I send back the money, the innocent person who got his money stolen gets it back, but then I become the innocent person who got his money stolen, so that makes no sense to me. Anybody with a similar experience?
TLDR: I sold bitcoins on localbitcoins, the money was dirty, I got arrested and now the police wants me to give back the money.
Submitted December 25, 2013 at 09:59AM by throw_localbitcoins
No comments:
Post a Comment