UK Police partner with law firm for digital asset recovery

The City of London Police has begun a civil asset recovery program in partnership with international law firm Gowling WLG, following a successful pilot in which assets were recovered for an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer’s who was defrauded more than £2 million (~$2.6 million) in a digital asset scam.

The partnership aims to coordinate efforts between private and public stakeholders to investigate and recover money lost by victims because of fraud in cases where a criminal prosecution is not possible or viable—such as those perpetrated by anonymous or pseudonymous crypto-criminals.

“After a successful pilot, we are pleased to be working on this initiative with City of London Police to investigate and support victims to recoup monies lost to such frauds,” said Bríd Holden, Gowling Director, in an April 3 press release. “We are hoping that working in collaboration with City of London Police will change the landscape and encourage more victims to report fraud, raising awareness generally.”

Holden added that £570 million (~$730 million) was lost to fraud in the U.K. in the first half of 2024, meanwhile, according to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, digital asset scams received at least $9.9 billion globally in 2024 alone.

Detective Chief Inspector Craig Mullish of the City of London Police said of the asset recovery initiative: “As a victim of fraud, you can feel helpless and that you have to shoulder the often heavy financial burden of losing money at the hands of criminals… This trial with Gowling WLG is an incredibly positive initiative, which we hope will provide a clear process for victims in helping them take back what is owed to them.”

The Gowling-City of London Police partnership appears to be a positive step in the fight to recover stolen assets, but the pilot that inspired it isn’t the only recent success story in the area.

Recent recoveries facilitated by new laws

In March, the U.K. police, working in conjunction with a team of specialist lawyers, recovered over £520,000 (~$670,000) in digital assets that had been defrauded from an 80-year-old man.

The recovery was the first case of its kind utilizing the recently amended Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“POCA”), which allows for court restraining orders to be issued and used by authorities to retrieve digital assets directly from exchanges and custodian wallet providers.

This process, already bearing fruit, will likely be further smoothed by the almost inevitable passage of the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill, which would create a new category of personal property for digital assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the U.K.—officially recognizing digital assets as property under the law, with all the associated protections and recourses (if lost/stolen) that come with that classification.

The bill was introduced in September 2024 and is currently being reviewed in the House of Lords, the U.K.’s upper house of Parliament.

Digital asset recovery

Thus, once thought unlikely—even impossible—digital asset recovery is becoming increasingly common, with some even arguing that the process can be easier than with real-world assets, thanks to the unique features of blockchain technology, such as immutability and traceability.

Numerous services and firms already exist to assist in the process, for example, Token Recovery, which announced the launch of its end-to-end digital asset recovery service last June.

According to Token Recovery, it “retrieves digital assets from all networks,” making its services “chain agnostic.”

Numerous other services are on the market, combining expertise in blockchain investigations with legal expertise and analysis of blockchain protocols to trace, freeze and ultimately—if possible—recover lost and stolen assets.

These digital asset-focused companies sit alongside law firms like Gowling WLG, who bring their own legal and technical expertise to bear on the problem.

Now, with the collaboration of authorities and favorable laws such as those in the U.K., the recovery of assets appears to be a much more hopeful cause.

Watch: Digital Asset Recovery takes token recovery seriously