Thanks for your response. You might have already known about "Pig Butchering Crypto Scam" and I add it here for anyone that hasn't known yet:
The latest crypto scam is being called “pig butchering” because it is a heavily scripted and contact intensive fraud meant to fatten the prey (or victim) before slaughter (or taking their money).
Emanating from Southeast Asia, the crypto investment scam typically starts with the fraudster making contact with the victim via social media, dating apps, or WhatsApp using a fake profile. They slowly build a relationship and rapport to earn the victim’s trust before casually mentioning they make significant amounts of money through cryptocurrency investments.
When the victim expresses interest in making an investment, the scammer will direct them to websites that appear to be legitimate cryptocurrency exchange platforms. In reality, the scammer exclusively controls the exchange.
The victim will usually go to a mainstream exchange like Coinbase, buy stable coins (like: 1 USDT = 1USD), and transfer a few small investments to the fake platform’s wallet. The scammer will then post modest gains and even allow the victim to withdraw small amounts of money once or twice as a way to build trust and prove the platform is legitimate.
Once convinced that the platform is legitimate and the gains are real, the victim will start making larger investments, sometimes in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In many cases, victims get this money from personal loans, retirement assets, and home equity lines of credit.
When the victim eventually wants to withdraw the larger investments made, they are denied by the scammer. The fake platform will say the victim must pay a percentage (10-30%) of the requested amount in taxes before the withdrawal can be processed. This requirement is a lie. Even if the victim does pay the purported taxes, the scammer will continually deny the withdrawal of funds for one reason or another.
Eventually, the scammer vanishes, cuts off contact, and takes the victim’s invested money resulting in another successful pig butchering crypto scam.
So far I haven't got any clear info of how the victims could claim their losses on tax return. I've been reaching out to check with the a few local tax specialists but none of them have experienced with this situation. They mentioned the Ponzi scam but Ponzi is different; which the investors transfer money directly from their banks to the companies that probably can be traced by the U.S. via the bank transactions. On the contrary, the Pig Butchering scam is the investors transfer money from their banks to their legal crypto wallet (coinbase) and then purchase the USDT to transfer to the fake exchange platform (could be international). Soon the money transferred to the fake exchange platform via the private encrypted keys, it's gone without trace...
My case is probably the same as @jadoye ; wonder if Jadoye has found the solution yet?
