The short version
- Action Fraud creates the official crime record. Free. No cost, no investigator assigned in most cases, limited updates.
- A private onchain investigation produces documented evidence of where funds went. Paid. No enforcement power of its own.
- Neither one, by itself, gets money back. A return of funds runs through an exchange, law enforcement or the civil courts.
- Report first — it is free and it takes minutes. Decide about an investigation afterwards, once you know what evidence you already hold.
What Action Fraud actually does
Action Fraud is the reporting centre for fraud in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is not a police force and does not investigate. Your report is recorded, given a crime reference number, and passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, which looks for links between reports and decides whether a viable package can be sent to a local force.
The crime reference number matters more than most people realise. Banks, exchanges and solicitors routinely ask for it before they will engage, and it is the piece that turns your account of events into a formal record. Getting it costs nothing and takes about twenty minutes.
What it does not do is give you an investigator, a timeline, or a case update. Most individual fraud reports are recorded for intelligence purposes. That is a function of volume, not a judgement on your case.
What a private onchain investigation does
A private investigation answers a narrower, factual question: where did the funds go, and what is holding them now. That is done by following the transfers across the public ledger, hop by hop, and classifying the endpoint of each branch — an exchange deposit address, a bridge, a privacy protocol, or an address that has simply stopped moving.
The output is a document. It sets out the starting point, the full transaction path with hashes anyone can verify, the amounts at each hop, and a plain statement of what is established versus inferred. It has no legal force on its own; its value is that it gives a bank, an exchange compliance team, a police officer or a solicitor something specific to act on.
- It cannot reverse a transaction — nobody can.
- It cannot compel an exchange to hand over account details or freeze a balance.
- It cannot name the person behind an address from onchain data alone.
- It can show, with evidence, which regulated service received the funds and when.
Side by side
- Cost — Action Fraud: free. Private investigation: a fixed, written price agreed before work starts.
- Speed — Action Fraud: reference number immediately, assessment over weeks. Investigation: initial findings in days.
- Powers — Action Fraud: feeds the police system, which can compel disclosure. Investigation: no compulsion, evidence only.
- Output — Action Fraud: a crime reference number. Investigation: a verifiable report of the fund path and its terminal points.
- Scope — Action Fraud: all fraud types. Investigation: the onchain movement of the specific funds you lost.
Why they work better together
The reason most reports go no further is not disbelief — it is that there is no actionable lead attached. A report that says money was sent to a wallet and vanished is difficult to progress. A report accompanied by a traced path ending at a named, regulated exchange, with hashes and timestamps, describes a specific place where information exists and a specific party who holds it.
The same applies to exchanges. A compliance team receiving a general complaint has little to work with; the same team receiving exact deposit addresses, transaction hashes, timestamps and a crime reference number has a defined request in front of it. This is the practical mechanism by which an investigation contributes to a return of funds, and it is the only honest way to describe it.
How to sequence it
- Stop any further payments and preserve everything — hashes, addresses, screenshots, messages, emails with headers.
- Report to Action Fraud and obtain the crime reference number. This is free and should not wait.
- Notify the receiving exchange in writing on the same day if you can identify one. Timing matters most here.
- Tell your bank if funds left a UK account, and ask for its decision in writing.
- Only then consider a paid investigation, with a written scope, once you know what you already hold and what is still unknown.
When a private investigation is probably not worth it
We say this at intake and it belongs in a public guide too. If the funds moved directly into a mixing service at the first hop, if the loss is small relative to the cost of the work, or if you already know exactly which exchange received the deposit and have reported it, an investigation may add little. A firm that never tells you this is not scoping your case; it is selling a product.
If you are looking at your own case rather than reading generally, our cryptocurrency investigation service explains how a case is scoped and worked, the asset tracing hub covers the network-specific work, and our overview of cryptocurrency scam recovery in the UK sets out what is realistic. Asset pages: USDT tracing, Bitcoin tracing and Ethereum tracing. You can also contact the investigations team directly.
Common questions
- Should I report to Action Fraud before hiring an investigator?
- Yes. Reporting is free, takes about twenty minutes, and produces a crime reference number that banks and exchanges will ask for. It also costs you nothing if you later decide an investigation is not worthwhile.
- Will a private investigation make the police take my case?
- It cannot guarantee that. What it can do is attach a specific, verifiable lead — a named regulated service holding the funds, with hashes and timestamps — to a report that would otherwise have none. That is the difference between an intelligence record and an actionable package.
- Can a private investigator get my money back directly?
- No. Wallsec does not hold, handle or return client funds, and no investigator can reverse a confirmed transfer. Any return happens through an exchange, law enforcement or civil proceedings, and depends on funds still being reachable.
- Is Action Fraud the right route in Scotland?
- No. In Scotland, report fraud to Police Scotland on 101. Action Fraud covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- How much does a private onchain investigation cost in the UK?
- It should be quoted as fixed-scope work in writing before anything starts, priced on the complexity and volume of transactions rather than the amount you lost. Be cautious of any price quoted without a defined scope.
Have a case you want reviewed?
We scope at intake and tell you honestly whether the onchain data supports a traceable case.
Key terms in this guide
Plain-English definitions from the Wallsec glossary.