How to report a crypto scam: where to file, country by country

If you lost money in a crypto scam or rug pull, report it to your national fraud or cybercrime agency first. In the United States that means the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, and usually the FTC as well. Outside the U.S., it means your national reporting service: Report Fraud in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, ReportCyber in Australia, the Hong Kong Police e-Report Centre, or a Singapore Police Force report. Then report to the exchange where the funds landed and, if stablecoins were involved, to the issuer.

Filing takes an hour or two if your evidence is organized. It will not get your money back on its own, and most individual reports are never personally investigated. But reports are how agencies connect one victim's loss to hundreds of others, and a report reference number is something exchanges, banks, and lawyers will ask you for later. Below is where to file, what to include, and what to expect.

Before you file: get your evidence in order

Every agency asks for roughly the same core facts. Collect them once and you can reuse them for every report. If you have not captured the project's Telegram, website, and social posts yet, do that first, because those disappear fast. Our guide to preserving evidence before it's gone walks through it.

• Transaction hashes for every purchase, transfer, or failed sell, with the blockchain each one is on (Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, and so on).
• Wallet addresses: yours, the token contract, the deployer wallet, and any address you sent funds to directly.
• Amounts and dates: how much you sent, in which asset, and its approximate dollar (or local currency) value at the time.
• Timestamps with time zones, taken from the block explorer rather than from memory.
• Screenshots of the project's website, Telegram or Discord, X posts, and any promises about locked liquidity, audits, or team identity.
• Communications with anyone who promoted the token or contacted you directly, including usernames, handles, phone numbers, and email addresses.
• Exchange records showing where you bought the crypto you used, and any account on the exchange where the stolen funds may have ended up.

If you are still in the first hours after a rug pull, some steps are more urgent than reporting. See what to do after a rug pull for the order of operations.

How to write a clear timeline

Most report forms have a free-text box. This is where reports succeed or fail. An investigator reading thousands of submissions needs to understand yours in under a minute. Write it as a dated sequence, not a story.

1. Start with one sentence that summarizes the loss: what the token or platform was, how much you lost, and the date.
2. List events in chronological order, one line each, with a date and time. For example: "March 3, 14:20 UTC: bought 2 SOL of $TOKEN, tx hash ..."
3. Mark the moment the scam happened, such as the liquidity withdrawal or the point your sells started failing, and include that transaction hash if you have it.
4. Name every person, handle, website, and wallet involved, exactly as they appeared.
5. End with what you have already done: other agencies you reported to and their reference numbers, and whether you contacted an exchange.

Keep it factual. Say what you saw and what the blockchain shows. Avoid guessing at who was behind it unless you have a concrete reason, and if you do, say what that reason is.

Where to report a crypto scam in the United States

U.S. victims can, and usually should, file with more than one agency. They share some data, but not all of it, and each has a different mandate.

FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)

The IC3 is the FBI's central intake point for internet fraud, including crypto investment scams and rug pulls. This is the main answer to "how do I report crypto fraud to the FBI." The form asks for victim details, the transaction information, and a description of what happened. IC3 says it cannot respond to every submission; complaints may be referred to federal, state, local, or international law enforcement, and any follow-up is at the receiving agency's discretion. Save a copy of your complaint and its complaint ID when you finish, because you cannot easily retrieve it later.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

File at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC does not resolve individual cases, but reports go into a database used by law enforcement agencies and help the FTC identify patterns and bring cases against scammers.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

If the token was sold as an investment, with promises of returns from a team's efforts, the SEC may have an interest. Submit a tip through the SEC's Tips, Complaints, and Referrals portal. The SEC lists fraudulent or unregistered securities offerings, theft of funds, and price manipulation among the matters it wants to hear about.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)

The CFTC polices fraud in commodity markets, and it treats some digital assets as commodities. If the scam involved a trading platform, leveraged trading, or a fake crypto "trading bot," file a tip or complaint at cftc.gov/complaint.

Your state attorney general

State attorneys general handle consumer fraud and sometimes pursue crypto cases directly. Find yours through the National Association of Attorneys General's Find My AG page, then look for the consumer protection complaint form on that office's site.

Local police

Local police rarely have the tools to trace crypto, but a police report gives you a report number. Banks, exchanges, and insurers sometimes ask for one, and stablecoin issuers generally act on requests from law enforcement rather than individuals. Bring a printed copy of your timeline and ask for the report number before you leave.

Where to report outside the U.S.

If you live outside the United States, report in your own country first. You can still file with IC3 if a U.S. exchange or U.S.-based scammer was involved, but your own police are the ones who can act on your behalf locally.

United Kingdom: Report Fraud

Action Fraud has been replaced. Since December 2025 the national service for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is Report Fraud, run by the City of London Police, at reportfraud.police.uk or by phone on 0300 123 2040. You receive a crime reference number. Scotland was not part of the initial launch; people in Scotland should report to Police Scotland on 101 unless that has changed by the time you read this.

Canada: Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre collects fraud reports nationally. Report online through the national cybercrime and fraud reporting system or call 1-888-495-8501. The CAFC does not investigate cases itself, and it tells victims to contact their local police as well.

Australia: ReportCyber and Scamwatch

Report cybercrime, including theft of crypto, through ReportCyber, which routes your report to the police agency best placed to handle it. Also report to the National Anti-Scam Centre through Scamwatch, which uses reports to warn the public and take down scam sites and ads.

Hong Kong: Police e-Report Centre and the SFC

File a report through the Hong Kong Police e-Report Centre using the technology crime and deception form, or go to a police station. The Anti-Deception Coordination Centre runs the Anti-Scam Helpline 18222 for advice, but a call to 18222 is not a crime report on its own. If the scam ran through an unlicensed trading platform, also check the Securities and Futures Commission's list of suspicious virtual asset trading platforms; the SFC also accepts complaints about unlicensed firms through its website.

Singapore: SPF, ScamShield, and MAS

Lodge a police report online through the Singapore Police Force's e-services or at a Neighbourhood Police Centre. ScamShield runs a 24/7 helpline at 1799 and publishes a checklist of what to include in a police report. You can check whether a platform has been flagged on the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Investor Alert List.

European Union: your national police

Report to the police or the national cybercrime unit in your own country. Europol does not take crime reports from individuals; its FAQ says reports must go to the relevant national authority, which can involve Europol if a case crosses borders. Europol's report-a-crime page points to national reporting channels for a few specific crime types.

Report to the platforms, not just the police

Government reports build cases. Private companies are sometimes faster at freezing money. Do both.

The exchange where the funds landed

If a trace shows stolen funds moving to a centralized exchange, contact that exchange's support or compliance team right away with the transaction hashes and the receiving address. Exchanges usually cannot tell you who owns an account, and many will only freeze funds on a law enforcement or court request, which is why having a police or IC3 reference number ready helps. Our post on reading a wallet trace explains why this hop matters so much.

Stablecoin issuers

If the stolen funds are now held as USDT or USDC, the issuer can technically freeze them at the contract level. Tether and Circle have both frozen funds tied to crime, but they generally act on requests from law enforcement rather than on a victim's word alone. Contact Tether support or Circle's help center with the wallet address and transaction hashes, and give your police report number so they can match it to any official request.

Wallet providers and token sites

Report the scam token or contract to the wallet you use, since some wallets flag known scam tokens for other users. If the token launched on a launchpad or is listed on a token-tracking site that has a report or flag function, use it. This will not recover your money, but it can stop the next person from buying.

What happens after you report

Be realistic. Agencies like IC3, the FTC, and the CAFC receive far more reports than they can investigate one by one. Most people who file never get a personal call back. That does not mean the report did nothing.

• Reports get aggregated. A single rug pull often has hundreds of victims. When many reports name the same token, wallet, or website, the case becomes visible to investigators in a way one report cannot.
• Reports feed seizures and freezes. Law enforcement requests to exchanges and stablecoin issuers depend on evidence that a wallet is tied to fraud, and victim reports are part of that evidence.
• Reports support later claims. If authorities recover funds, or if a civil case or collective action is brought, a dated report filed close to the loss helps show when you raised it and what you knew.
• Some agencies will contact you. If investigators take up a case, they may reach out for more detail. Respond, but verify they are who they say they are first (see below).

Recovery is never guaranteed, whether you report or not. What reporting does is keep your options open.

Warning: real agencies never charge a fee to recover your money

Filing a report can make you a target. Scammers watch for victims, and some even impersonate the agencies above. The FBI has warned repeatedly about fake law firms and fake "recovery" services that contact crypto scam victims, sometimes claiming to work with the FBI or IC3.

If you are unsure whether a contact is real, hang up and call the agency back using a number from its official website. Our guide to crypto recovery scams covers the most common scripts they use.

A simple reporting checklist

1. Capture and save your evidence: transaction hashes, wallet addresses, screenshots, and messages.
2. Write a one-page dated timeline you can paste into every form.
3. File with your national agency (IC3 in the U.S., or your country's equivalent) and save the reference number.
4. File with any other relevant agencies: FTC, SEC, CFTC, or your state attorney general in the U.S.; Scamwatch, ScamShield, or the SFC elsewhere.
5. Get a local police report number.
6. Contact the exchange where funds landed and, for USDT or USDC, the stablecoin issuer.
7. Keep a log of every report and reference number in one place.
8. Ignore anyone who contacts you offering to recover funds for a fee.

Reporting is one piece of the picture. If many people lost money to the same project, pooling evidence and pursuing the case together is often more viable than one person going it alone. Recoup is not a law firm and does not give legal advice, but we can help you document your loss and connect it with other victims of the same project.