Fictitious law firms: the recovery scam that borrows the FBI's name
The FBI has issued three escalating public warnings about a scheme that targets people who have already lost money to cryptocurrency fraud. Operators posing as lawyers at firms that do not exist contact victims, claim to be working with the FBI or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and charge fees to recover funds they never recover. Between February 2023 and February 2024 alone, victims further exploited this way reported losses of over $9.9 million.
- Year
- 2025
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Ongoing
- Reported loss
- $9.9 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Recovery scams, Pig butchering, Fake investment platforms
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-06
The facts, as recorded
- First flagged by IC3 in August 2023 as an increase in companies falsely claiming to recover funds lost to cryptocurrency investment scams.
- Escalated in June 2024 to a specific warning about fictitious law firms, and again in August 2025 with additional red-flag indicators.
- Between February 2023 and February 2024, victims further exploited by fictitious law firms reported losses totalling over $9.9 million to IC3.
- Operators claim to be working with, or to have received the victim's case from, the FBI, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or another government agency.
- IC3 notes there are no law firms which are officially authorized partners of US Government agencies.
- Tactics include invented regulators such as the "International Financial Trading Commission", knowing the exact amounts and dates of the victim's earlier transfers, and directing victims to register accounts at fake foreign banks.
- Private-sector recovery companies cannot issue seizure orders, and law enforcement does not charge victims a fee for investigating crimes.
Why this case matters
This is not a prosecution. It is three official warnings issued over two years about a scheme that is still running, and it is included here because the pattern it documents is the one most likely to reach someone reading this site immediately after a loss.
The operators are not guessing. IC3’s red-flag list includes that they know “the exact amounts and dates of previous wire transfers and the third-party company where the victim previously sent scammed funds.” That knowledge is the whole trick: it is the thing that makes the caller sound like someone who has genuinely found your case file, and it comes from the first scam’s own records.
The credibility stack
What makes this variant work is how many separate borrowed authorities it stacks. The caller is a lawyer — a profession people are trained to trust with recovery. The firm has letterhead and an insignia, sometimes lifted from a real practice, which harms the real firm as well. The lawyer is working with the FBI, or the CFPB, or a foreign regulator. Sometimes the regulator itself is invented: IC3 specifically names the “International Financial Trading Commission” as a body that does not exist.
Against all of that, one rule holds and is worth memorising because it needs no judgement: there are no law firms that are official partners of a US government agency, and no law-enforcement body charges a fee to investigate a crime.
What it tells you about the scheme
Victim lists are an asset. Somebody who has just lost a large sum is the most valuable target in fraud: motivated, already proven to pay, and often too ashamed to tell anyone who might interrupt. That is why the second approach so often arrives within weeks of the first, and why some of it comes from the original operation under a new name.
The defence is structural rather than perceptive. Recovery does not begin with someone contacting you. It begins with you contacting your bank, your national reporting agency, and — if you choose — a lawyer you found and engaged on ordinary terms. Anyone who arrives offering the reverse has told you what they are.
Sources
- Increase in Companies Falsely Claiming an Ability to Recover Funds Lost in Cryptocurrency Investment Scams. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. Accessed 2026-09-06. Supports: The original warning; that recovery firms cannot issue seizure orders; that law enforcement charges no fee.
- Fictitious Law Firms Targeting Cryptocurrency Scam Victims Offering to Recover Funds. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. Accessed 2026-09-06. Supports: The $9.9 million figure for February 2023 to February 2024; the government-affiliation claims.
- Fictitious Law Firms Targeting Cryptocurrency Scam Victims Combine Multiple Exploitation Tactics While Offering to Recover Funds. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. Accessed 2026-09-06. Supports: The 2025 red-flag list, the invented regulator, and the targeting of elderly victims.