Evan Wright was instructed by D to attend a police interview when it was alleged that D and members of her family had been involved in a crypto-currency fraud.

It was said that an online investment company attracted clients who would invest money in daily, weekly and monthly plans against promises that the returns would be anything from 5% to 15% over a very short period.

The company attracted very large sums from individual clients and although initial returns were made, later investments by the same clients were not repaid and the company failed to meet its obligations. The police investigated and found that a small number of investors had opened a large number of accounts and had actually secured some profit from the operation. The officers thought that these investors might be part of the fraud, in that they would attract other investors into the scheme and manage their investments to the ultimate benefit of the main fraudsters. Advice therefore revolved around persuading the officers that our client was an ordinary investor who happened to avoid being defrauded. They used a method which made it very difficult for the fraudster to avoid returning a profit to the client’s crypto-currency wallets. The explanation was quite technical and had to be supported with a substantial pack of evidence presented during the police interview, but the officers subsequently agreed that the client should not be regarded as a suspect. This meant that the client’s crypto-currency wallets containing over £50,000.00 could be released and D was free to realise the profits. This case is to be distinguished from one in which someone is claiming to have been defrauded and seeks legal advice in the recovery of the funds. D’s case involved an allegation that she was the fraudster.