The UK Home Office's Fraud Strategy 2026 to 2029 classifies cryptocurrency as a growing fraud risk and commits more enforcement capacity at the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office, and the FCA. City of London Police figures cited in the policy debate show crypto featured in 66% of investment-fraud reports received in 2024 by the old Action Fraud service, a 16% increase on the prior year. From 4 December 2025 that service was replaced by Report Fraud, still run by the City of London Police, on 0300 123 2040 and reportfraud.police.uk. Scotland uses Police Scotland on 101. The strategy is a three-year enforcement map. It is not a recovery desk. The FCA has said it cannot get your coins back and will not contact you to say it is holding them. Almost 5,000 fake-FCA scam reports arrived in the first half of 2025 alone. That impersonation wave is why Key Coin victims are being billed in Bitcoin this week.
Report Fraud was built to fix the "black hole" the Justice Committee described in 2022. Reports now feed the National Crime Analysis Service so forces can see patterns across thousands of files. That helps when one clone-exchange dashboard drains 200 people for £8,000 each. It does not reverse a completed on-chain transfer. Keep wallet addresses, transaction hashes, dates, amounts, exchange names, chat logs, URLs, and screenshots before you call. You will get a crime reference number. Banks, civil counsel, and forensic desks ask for that number first. Then report the firm to the FCA if it pretended to be authorised. Search the FCA Firm Checker yourself. Do not click a link in the email that claims to be the register.
A strategy is not a tracing pack
Coins that left for wallets a director controlled, or for an offshore desk, still need a wallet map and a court that can freeze what is left. Legitimate practices do not invoice in Bitcoin first, do not ask for AnyDesk, TeamViewer, seed phrases, or private keys, and do not guarantee a refund. Swiss-registered counsel such as Sarah Legal start with evidence and a forensic pack. Hong Kong-registered tracing in the aidataintelligence.io style is the exhibit. Without it, a pleading is a letter. Recovery is never automatic. It depends on whether the coins can still be traced to an exchange or a wallet a court can reach. For the sequence, see how crypto recovery works.
What to do this week, in order
Call the bank if pounds left a UK account. File Report Fraud. File the FCA report if the pitch claimed regulation. Keep the crime number. Ignore anyone who cold-calls offering to unlock a freeze, file a free petition for a fee, or impersonate the NCA, SFO, or Insolvency Service after the Key Coin winding-up. The government's page, not a Telegram handle, is the source. A national strategy that names crypto as a crime risk is useful for victims who need a paper trail. It is not a promise that 66% of those files will see coins come home.