Stephen Wilden v Person Unknown

Hearing date: 14 May 2026

Approved Judgment

This judgment was handed down remotely at 2pm on 5 th June 2026 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

Deputy High Court Judge Guy Vassall-Adams KC:

Introduction

This is the return date of an application for injunctive relief in the form of a proprietary and worldwide freezing order against an unknown person who stole Bitcoin valued at about EUR 2.5 million from the Claimant and for a disclosure order against Huobi Global S.A, the owner of the cryptocurrency exchange HTX, which is believed to hold the relevant cryptocurrency and to know the identity of the account holder who perpetrated the fraud.

A proprietary and worldwide freezing order (the “Freezing Injunction”) against the unknown person, who used the name Smith in his dealings with the Claimant (“Smith”), was granted on a without notice and urgent basis by Mrs Justice Obi on 17 March 2026. On the same occasion, Obi J granted a without notice and urgent disclosure order against Huobi Global SA (“Huobi”). These orders were served on the Defendants and they were put on notice of this return date, but there has been no response from Smith, while Huobi have replied by email suggesting the Claimant contacts the police but failing to comply with the Court's order. The issue for me is whether these injunctions should be continued until trial.

The parties

The Claimant is a German businessman who has worked in industry and mechanical engineering throughout his 25-year career. For the last 10 years he has been the managing director of a medium-sized German engineering company. The Claimant is not, and never has been, a crypto trader or speculator.

The First Defendant is an unknown person, believed to be of English nationality, who used the alias Brian Smith and who fraudulently induced the Claimant to transfer to him Bitcoin valued at 32.457826 BTC (EUR 2,586,845), in the circumstances described in this judgment.

The Second Defendant, Huobi Global SA, is the company which is believed to own the global cryptocurrency exchange HTX. According to experts instructed by the Claimant, the Claimant's Bitcoin can be traced into the hands of this exchange. HTX maintains a public online presence, including the website htx.com, where it markets itself as “Trusted by 59 Million Users for 12 Years”. Relevantly for the purpose of this application, HTX is on the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) Warning List for operating in the UK without proper authorisation and the FCA has commenced legal proceedings against HTX in the Business and Property Courts (Claim FS-2025-000015) for communicating financial promotions in the UK contrary to s.21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

Factual background

Bitcoin held on EuropeFX

In or around 2019, the Claimant made his first investment in cryptocurrencies. He purchased Bitcoin through an online platform known as EuropeFX, but did not actively trade it, he simply left the Bitcoin on that platform. The Claimant cannot now recall precisely how much Bitcoin he purchased, what fees were deducted by the platform, or whether the Bitcoin increased in value while it remained on the EuropeFX platform.

EuropeFX subsequently ceased operating as an online platform in or around 2021 and the Claimant was unable to recover the Bitcoin held there. The Claimant does not know precisely what happened to the platform or why it closed. At that time, the Claimant did not pursue recovery of his Bitcoin. He was unsure how to go about recovering the Bitcoin and he was uncertain whether it would be worthwhile incurring legal costs in attempting to recover it. He therefore considered it lost.

Contact with Smith and the transfer of funds

On 1 December 2025, the Claimant received an unsolicited cold call to his work mobile phone from a man who introduced himself as “Brian Smith”. Smith said that he was a UK-based investment adviser. The Claimant's records show that Smith contacted the Claimant using the following British telephone numbers: +44 1384 954328 and +44 20 7096 6186.

Smith's email address was brian-smith@europe.com. Smith spoke English with what the Claimant perceived to be a British accent. Although the Claimant is a German national and his first language is German, he also speaks good English.

During their initial phone call, which lasted about an hour, Smith told the Claimant that he was working for a company called LedgerLock and that LedgerLock was working together with EuropeFX. During that conversation Smith revealed that he was aware the Claimant had invested in Bitcoin on the EuropeFX platform in or around 2019. Smith told him that he would be able to transfer the Bitcoin that had effectively been lost on EuropeFX to a new wallet that he was proposing to create for the Claimant. In that way, Smith offered to help the Claimant to recover his Bitcoin.

The Claimant did not know how Smith knew about his Bitcoin investments with EuropeFX or his lost 2019 Bitcoin purchase. During that call, Smith demonstrated a detailed knowledge of the Claimant's transactions in his EuropeFX account and referred specifically to the date of purchase, account balances, trades, credits and withdrawals. Smith said that he had access to EuropeFX and was working closely with the platform. Because of Smith's apparent inside knowledge the Claimant believe that he was legitimate and had institutional access to the platform. However, the forensic investigators which the Claimant subsequently instructed believe that this information may have been obtained from publicly available blockchain data or from purchased databases.

During the conversation Smith informed the Claimant that his Bitcoin was not safe on EuropeFX as it was an unregulated platform. The upshot of the call was that Smith persuaded the Claimant that the only realistic way for him to recover his Bitcoin was for Smith to create a LedgerLock wallet for him and move the Bitcoin from EuropeFX to that wallet. Smith said that this would allow the Claimant to regain access to the Bitcoin and ultimately withdraw it in Euros to his German bank account and that Ledgerlock would assist him in presenting the relevant tax documentation to the German tax office.

During the call, Smith used AnyDesk software to enable the Claimant to share his computer screen with him. Smith instructed the Claimant step-by-step in assisting him to set up a LedgerLock blockchain wallet with a password and what the Claimant believed was two-factor authentication (although the forensic investigators subsequently instructed by the Claimant have advised him that this was not genuine two-factor authentication). Smith then informed the Claimant that he had already transferred the Bitcoin from EuropeFX into that newly created LedgerLock wallet. Smith showed the Claimant the balance on the LedgerLock wallet and pointed out that it contained approximately 1.3 Bitcoin (BTC).

Smith then persuaded the Claimant to undertake what he described as the “IBM process”. Essentially, the Claimant was led to believe that in order to regularise and secure the transfer of his Bitcoin from EuropeFX to Ledgerlock and to ensure that that the Bitcoin could then be transferred to a mainstream exchange and back into Europe, the Claimant would need to make a number of payments using Bitcoin in order to satisfy various technical and regulatory requirements. As a result of this conversation, the Claimant believed he needed to buy further Bitcoin and deposit it in the LedgerLock account. Smith also persuaded the Claimant that Bitcoin was an excellent investment and that his LedgerLock account would be profitable.

In subsequent weeks, the Claimant transferred Euros from his German bank account to a number of well-known cryptocurrency exchanges (Crypto.com, OKX, Binance and Kraken) where he purchased Bitcoin. Smith assisted the Claimant with buying the Bitcoin on the exchanges, using screen-sharing. After purchasing the Bitcoin, the Claimant transferred the Bitcoin onwards to the LedgerLock account that Smith had created for him. In the course of many transactions in December 2025 and January 2026 the Claimant paid out about Euros 2.6 million which were converted into 32.4572826 Bitcoin via the cyptocurency exchanges and then transferred to two Ledgerlock wallets.

In January 2026, the Claimant requested Smith to transfer some Bitcoin back into his Binance wallet and Smith arranged for a small transfer back to him. The Claimant also utilised the “Support” function on the Ledgerlock platform on multiple occasions, believing that he was interacting with a legitimate platform. On 26 January 2060 Smith told the Claimant that that the final “IBM step” was complete and the Ledgerlock dashboard showed Bitcoin sent back to Binance. But no Bitcoin arrived. The Claimant found himself locked out of Ledgerlock. His password no longer worked. Smith stopped responding. The Claimant realised that he had been the victim of a fraud.

Forensic tracing

The Claimant instructed specialist forensic investigators, Crypto Forensiq, to analyse the cryptocurrency transactions associated with the transfers that he made during the course of the fraud. Their report dated 15 March 2026 is exhibited to his affidavit.

The report explains that the investigators carried out a forensic blockchain analysis using specialised analytical tools and blockchain explorers in order to trace the...