Aiden Larkin, chief executive officer and founder of fintech Asset Reality, is lamenting the slow response of law enforcement officials in tackling the issue of crypto fraud globally.

Larkin, who was speaking during the second day of the Financial Investigation Division (FID) Biennial Conference, held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Thursday (February 2), said crypto fraud victims continue to suffer due to a lack of resources among law enforcement officials investigating crypto fraud cases.

“We have over 5,000 investigations of victims of fraud involving crypto. Unless you have lost over half a million dollars, the likelihood of law enforcement being able to take on your case, because of a lack of resources and the tools necessary, means that victims usually have nowhere to go,” said the CEO of the United Kingdom-based firm, which investigates, manages and realises seized assets for public and private sector clients.

Larkin further noted that the lack of resources continues to put a strain on how the financial sector can deal with crypto frauds which may result in victims committing suicide.

“Victims of crypto fraud for me have the worst outlook. I have never seen anything like it. Imagine turning up to a police station saying ‘I have just been robbed’ and they say ‘Sorry, there’s nothing we can do for you’. I advise, go to a law firm and they will be able to do it for you,” he said.

Cryptocurrency fraud is a type of financial crime in which criminals employ tactics to lure investors to purchase assets with the intention to get access to their digital wallets.

According to Larkin, the crypto sector needs to employ a strategic approach to improve self-regulation and make information readily available to law enforcement officials to aid in the response to crypto fraud.

The way forward

He noted that greater collaboration between the public and private sector can help to provide the tools necessary to tackle cryptocurrency fraud.

“All of these assets that my team have been involved with in one way were all complicated assets and we brought in, when necessary, private sector to assist,” he said.

The asset recovery specialist also outlined that there will be a collaboration between Asset Reality and FID to provide training courses to local entity’s staff on asset recovery.

“We will be doing an onboarding training in a month or so and it just allows you to go in, take a wallet, select the crypto asset and, if the crypto asset isn’t on the list, we take care of that,” he noted.