How to report crypto theft, step by step.
Reporting is free, it takes about thirty minutes, and it is the step most likely to matter. Do it before you pay any investigator, including us.
Gather your transaction hashes, the addresses involved, dates, amounts, and every message or website connected to the loss. A report with transaction detail is materially more useful than one without.
Keep every reference number you are given. Exchanges, banks and insurers ask for them.
Where do you report stolen cryptocurrency?
In the United States, report crypto theft to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov and to your local police force. Add the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and the CFTC or SEC where the loss involved trading or an investment scheme. Reporting is free, and a police reference number is often required before an exchange will act.
Five reports, in this sequence.
Each one does something different. The first two matter most, and neither costs anything.
FBI IC3 — the primary US route
The Internet Crime Complaint Center is where US crypto theft reports are aggregated and routed to field offices. File here even if the amount feels too small to matter: IC3 clusters reports against the same addresses and schemes, and clusters are what get investigated.
Include: every transaction hash, every address, the platform or person involved, and how contact began.
Your local police force
File in your own jurisdiction and insist on a reference or crime number. Officers may not be crypto specialists, and that is fine — the record is what matters. Banks, exchanges and insurers routinely require it, and it is often the precondition for any formal request to a service.
Bring: a printed one-page summary with the hashes and amounts. It speeds the process considerably.
FTC ReportFraud
The Federal Trade Commission’s reporting service covers scams, impersonation and investment fraud. It feeds a database used by law enforcement across the United States and informs enforcement action against recurring operations.
The exchange that received the funds — if you can identify it
If tracing shows the funds reached a centralised exchange, that exchange is the only party who can freeze anything. Contact its compliance or law-enforcement team with the destination address, the transaction hashes and your police reference number. An exchange will rarely act on a victim’s word alone, but it can and does act on a documented report routed correctly.
Report nationally, then locally.
Most countries operate a national fraud or cybercrime reporting body alongside local police. File with both, and keep both reference numbers.
Contact your bank immediately, before anything else on this page. Where a card payment or bank transfer funded the purchase, that is the one channel where speed can still change the outcome — chargeback and recall windows are short and close permanently.
Setting the expectation honestly.
What it does
What it does not do
People who report a crypto loss are frequently approached afterwards by “recovery agents” who claim to have found the funds, sometimes impersonating the very agency you reported to. No agency charges a fee to return your money, and none will contact you demanding payment. Read the recovery-scam warning signs before replying to anyone.
How to report a crypto scammer, and where to get help
Reporting crypto scams is free at every step. These are the routes people ask about most, including the ones that do not exist.
There is no single crypto scam helpline. Crypto fraud help in the United States is split across IC3 for the criminal report, the FTC for the fraud database, and the CFTC or SEC where trading or investment was involved. Knowing who to contact for crypto scams is mostly a matter of matching the loss to the right body — and filing with more than one is acceptable and often sensible.
Reporting a malicious address
Chain-specific abuse routes exist alongside the agencies above. A malicious Solana address, for example, can be reported to the relevant explorer and to services that maintain abuse lists, which helps flag it for others even when your own funds are gone.
Reporting the scammer, not just the loss
Include the platform, the profile, the phone numbers, the domains and the wallet addresses. Reports that identify infrastructure are what let agencies connect cases into the clusters that actually get worked.
If someone contacts you afterwards
Reporting a loss frequently attracts recovery scammers, sometimes impersonating the agency you reported to. No agency charges a fee to return your money. Warning signs.
Then decide about investigation
Reporting is the free step. Whether tracing adds anything depends on where the funds went. Compare all five recovery routes.
Where to report, and what happens next.
In the United States: IC3 for the criminal report, your local police for the reference number, the FTC for the fraud database, and the CFTC or SEC where trading or investment was involved. Filing with more than one is acceptable. Outside the US, report to your national fraud or cybercrime body and to local police.
Include the infrastructure, not only the amount: the platform or website, the profile and handles, phone numbers, email addresses and every wallet address involved. Reports that identify infrastructure are what allow agencies to connect separate cases into the clusters that actually get worked.
There is no single helpline. Crypto fraud help is split across the agencies above, and none of them charge a fee. Anyone contacting you claiming to be a recovery helpline, especially one asking for payment, is running the follow-on scam.
Report it alongside your main filing. Chain explorers and abuse-list maintainers accept reports of malicious addresses on Solana and other networks, which helps flag the address for others even when your own funds have already moved.