The UK Just Reversed the Burden of Proof in Crypto Scam Cases and It’s a Big Deal
A British man scammed out of over £520,000 in crypto just got it all back thanks to a new court power that puts the burden on fraudsters, not victims.
If you have ever worried about losing money to a crypto investment site, this one is for you, and it comes with a rare bit of good news. A crypto scammer thought he got away with over £500,000, until a new English law helped claw it all back. This is the first time victims have used a court power to recover stolen digital assets in full. Here's how it worked, and why it matters for crypto investors.
🌟 Crypto Scam Victim Gets £520,000 Back Thanks to a New UK Court Power
A man who was conned out of over £520,000 in a cryptocurrency fraud has just had every penny recovered by UK authorities. And yes, that’s every penny 🚀. This is the first known successful recovery of its kind using the new section 303Z51 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“POCA”), which gives real legal restitution to victims of crypto fraud.
The facts are that the unlucky investor was lured into putting his money into what looked like a professional, well-built crypto investment platform. The kind with smooth UX, dashboards that mimic real exchanges, and fake customer support.
The platform wasn’t real. It was a well-disguised clone of a legitimate crypto site. The fraudsters had copied not just the design but also the interface behaviour. The victim transferred over £520,000 in crypto thinking he was investing. But there were no returns, no customer service (who disappeared), and certainly no legitimate trading. Just silence.
Then the funds were moved through various wallets, some frozen, some anonymised. This is usually the point where recovery becomes a nightmare, but not this time 🧨.
🏛️ Enter POCA section 303Z51: a quiet but powerful shift
The recovery became possible thanks to a legal provision tucked into the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
This new section of POCA came into force in April 2024 and allows victims of crypto scams to apply to a court to get their assets back even if the crypto is mixed up in a pool of funds.
Section 303Z51 works like this:
If your crypto has been seized or is part of a frozen wallet, you can apply to the court saying, "That’s mine!"
You don’t have to prove every detail of your transaction history.
Crucially, the burden of proof (used in criminal law) shifts to the fraudster to explain why the funds aren’t yours.
This is massive. Because crypto wallets are often used to blend, mix, and obfuscate transactions, it’s notoriously hard to separate clean from dirty coins.
But now the court is willing to treat pooled wallets like a hot tub of stolen goods. If the victim’s money is in there and the scammer can’t say otherwise, the victim can get it back.