To lobby the legal systems of the world to take action
If you’ve been a victim of any type of fraud, your immediate first step is usually directed to the Police in your state or county. It’s the place where you would expect that criminal behaviour is dealt with.
After all, the Police only want to deal with those who have broken the law under the Criminal Code, and not be involved in Civil incidents. The difference between criminal and civil crimes is that each country has published their own Criminal Code (and how they deal with it), which comes from the governments that run the country. They distinguish crimes from civilian incidents using this code.
The Criminal Codes specify that “obtaining by deception or causing loss by deception” is a Crime, and can be investigated by Police.
Police specifically say that financial transactions with businesses are treated as Civil, not Criminal, in nature. Unfortunately, the Police (world-wide, it seems) have been groomed to handle cases of fraud quite differently to how they handle other criminal cases.
The Criminal Codes identify areas where Police have power to step in, but it is up to the Police to actually want to take this on. For instance, there are Criminal laws concerning the following:
- Obtaining by deception or causing loss by deception
- Accessing a computer system for dishonest purpose
- Making, selling, or distributing or possessing software for committing crime
- Money laundering
- Falsifying identity information
- Using a carriage service to threaten or menace
All these scenarios may be applicable to the organisations or individuals that use online bitcoin trading scams.