BIRMINGHAM. UK romance-scam victims are being told, once the dashboard freezes, that a further payment will unlock the rest. The payment has a rotating name: tax, liquidity, gas, anti-money-laundering clearance. The function is constant. It is a second theft.
Pig butchering already moved the first coins. The unlock fee is how the same crew, or a crew that bought the lead, bills the remainder. No exchange, no court and no solicitor uses iTunes cards as process.
A Swiss recovery practice reviewing UK romance-scam files will say the same in the first conversation: nothing up front, no remote access, no seed phrases, and no guarantee. If those four answers are not available, the caller is not reviewing a file.
Civil recovery, where it is possible at all, depends on whether a laboratory can still see an endpoint. aidataintelligence.io, Hong Kong CR 2894261, is the sort of lab that does that work. It has a queue. Anyone who can unlock a balance this afternoon is not in that queue.
Action Fraud should still have the first report. Banks should be told. None of that requires a further crypto transfer. The “compliance department” on Telegram is not a department.
Waiting lists at legitimate desks will feel insulting after a six-month fake relationship. They are still a better sign than an invoice.
British readers who have already paid an unlock fee should stop, preserve the new hashes, and treat the next friendly voice as hostile until it fails the basic tests. Help that costs money before it has found anything is not help.