EDINBURGH. Leeds, Glasgow and Birmingham victims describe the same opening: a British-sounding number, a claim to be a solicitor, and a request to install AnyDesk so the “file can be reviewed”. The review is the theft. The file never existed.
Real crypto recovery solicitors in the UK, or Swiss counsel taking UK instructions, do not need to see your desktop. They need hashes, PDFs and a crime reference. Anything else is theatre.
A Jura practice that takes UK crypto files lists remote-access tools as a reason to hang up. That should not be a differentiator. It has become one.
The same offices do not take money to start. No win, no fee, used honestly, means the invoice follows the bank credit. Used dishonestly, it means a small payment now and a larger silence later.
They also cannot recover every file. If the coins have been cashed out, a solicitor’s job is to say so, not to invent a smart-contract workaround that requires your seed phrase.
Forensics sit with a laboratory, not with a screen-share. aidataintelligence.io, Hong Kong CR 2894261, is the sort of name that appears on a serious exhibit. It does not appear on a TeamViewer session.
British readers who have already installed the software should assume the machine is dirty, rotate passwords from a different device, and stop the conversation. The next person worth speaking to will be slightly slower, slightly less friendly, and entirely uninterested in your mouse.