Bob Mackin
A man claims he was scammed out of $26 million worth of his Bitcoin by a woman claiming to be a cryptocurrency expert living in Vancouver.
In a Feb. 6 B.C. Supreme Court ruling, released March 13, Justice Bruce Elwood said that Lixiao Wang hired private investigator Gregory Tweed to help him trace cryptocurrency transactions that flowed to Binance Holdings Ltd. and Coinbase Global Inc.
Wang said he made 13 transfers totalling more than $26 million to an account on the weeexproit.com website after he was contacted in early 2024 on WhatsApp by Qin Xin.
Wang attempted to withdraw funds but found his account locked. weeexproit.com staff told him his account had been locked after cyberattacks and offered to perform a security audit if he deposited $6 million.
“Mr. Wang became suspicious and did not comply with this demand,” Eldwood said. “He has since been unable to access his account and unable to recover his funds.”
Wang applied to the court for and received production and preservation orders for information about the identities of the account holders who received the transactions and for the cryptocurrency and fiat funds held by the account holders to be preserved.
At the time of the two-day hearing, Wang had not served the petition and he did not allege wrondgoing by either Binance or Coinbase. But he intends to commence an action against the account holders and possibly others.
Elwood found that Wang showed first impression evidence against the individuals in control of the accounts on Binance and Coinbase, “acting together with Xin to perpetrate a fraudulent scheme to defraud him of his cryptocurrency.”
“I am satisfied that the respondents, Binance and Coinbase, are the only practical source of the personal information identifying the wrongdoers, and the only source of the information identifying the individuals in whose accounts the stolen bitcoin is presently being held,” Elwood concluded.
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