Foreign media: Chinese police disclose the forensic process of tracking and freezing cryptocurrencies

Odaily Planet Daily News The South China Morning Post reported that Sun Shengbin from the Wenzhou Public Security Bureau and Lou Yandi from the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department published a technical paper in the journal "Criminal Technology" on June 4, systematically disclosing the process of forensic evidence collection, tracking, seizure, and freezing in cases involving cryptocurrencies.

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