Foreign Media: Chinese Police Disclose Forensic Process for Tracking and Freezing Cryptocurrency

Odaily reported that the South China Morning Post disclosed a technical paper published on June 4th in the journal "Forensic Science and Technology" by Sun Shengbin of the Wenzhou Public Security Bureau and Lou Yandi of the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department. The paper systematically reveals the forensic, tracking, seizure, and freezing processes in cases involving cryptocurrencies.

The report indicates that investigators can identify assets by scanning private keys, seed phrases, screenshots, and chat records obtained from mobile phones, computers, and hardware wallets. If keys are not directly obtained, tracking can be conducted by combining blockchain transaction records, cross-chain transfer paths, mixer fund flows, and exchange user KYC information. For confirmed assets involved in a case, police can transfer them to a controlled wallet by changing the private key, or coordinate with exchanges to freeze the accounts. The report also emphasizes that private key management must be separated from case handling procedures, and a complete record of supervision must be maintained.