You have just discovered that money is gone. The transfer went through, the counterparty has vanished, and you are staring at a balance that no longer makes sense. The question is not whether you feel sick. The question is whether anything can be done – and, if so, how fast you need to move.
A feasibility report tells you, with honesty and precision, whether your specific loss is realistically recoverable. It maps where the assets went, which legal instruments could reach them, which forums have jurisdiction, and what a recovery effort would cost relative to the likely outcome. It does not promise recovery. It gives you the information you need to make a rational decision about whether to pursue one.
This page explains what a feasibility report covers, when it is the right first step, how Axiom Trace conducts one, and what it cannot tell you.
Why the First Hours Matter More Than Most Victims Realise
Assets move faster than court orders. That is the first thing every fraud victim needs to understand. A payment cleared on Monday may have passed through a correspondent bank, entered a virtual-asset service provider (VASP), and been converted or fragmented by Wednesday. By Friday it could be in a second wallet in a different jurisdiction, or layered through a shell company whose registered agent has no idea who the beneficial owner is.
In our experience, the clients who preserve the most options are those who act within the first 24 to 48 hours. Not because recovery is guaranteed in that window – it is not – but because the evidence is fresher, the trail is shorter, and the number of forums that can lawfully intervene is still wide. A freezing or disclosure application is typically made without notice to avoid tipping off the defendant, and that application depends entirely on the quality of the evidence assembled before anyone files anything.
Reporting to your bank is a necessary step. It is not, by itself, sufficient. Banks carry out internal processes at their own pace; they are not mandated to trace assets across borders on your behalf, and they cannot seek a worldwide freezing order or a Norwich Pharmal order. Those instruments require a claimant who is actively driving the matter. That claimant is you – or someone acting for you.
The feasibility report is designed to answer one question before you commit to that effort: is it worth it?
What Does a Feasibility Report Actually Cover?
A feasibility report is not a general legal opinion. It is a structured, evidence-based assessment of a specific loss, produced within days of engagement, and aimed at a single output: a clear view of recoverability. Every report Axiom Trace produces addresses the same core questions, in the same order.
First: asset location and movement. Where did the money go, and where is it likely to be now? We use open-source intelligence, payment documentation, and – where funds moved on-chain – blockchain-analytics tools to reconstruct the trail. On public blockchains, movements are traceable even when identities are hidden; the report identifies choke points where an identity can potentially be attached to a wallet address.
Second: the defendant profile. Who or what is the respondent? Is it an individual, a corporate entity, a nominee structure, a combination? Knowing whether the money sits behind a layer of shell companies or nominee arrangements is material to every subsequent decision. It determines which disclosure instruments are useful and whether piercing the corporate veil is a realistic avenue.
Third: jurisdiction mapping. Which courts or arbitral tribunals have jurisdiction over the defendant, the assets, or both? Cross-border recovery almost always involves more than one forum. The report identifies where interim relief is available, where enforcement is realistic, and where procedural barriers make action disproportionate.
Fourth: instrument selection. Given the asset location and defendant profile, which legal instruments apply? A worldwide freezing order, a proprietary injunction, a Bankers Trust order, a disclosure order against a VASP, a stablecoin issuer freeze – each has conditions, each has a cost, and each has a realistic timeline. The report maps the available options and is candid about which are viable on the facts.
Fifth: cost-benefit analysis. What would a recovery effort cost, and what is the realistic range of outcomes? We do not state a probability of recovery. We set out the cost of each step, the jurisdictions involved, the approximate timeframe to interim relief versus final enforcement, and the factors that could improve or reduce the outcome.
When Is a Feasibility Report the Right First Step?
Not every situation calls for a full feasibility report before acting. If funds moved within hours and a trace has already identified the receiving account, the priority is urgent interim relief, not a report. Time matters – request a confidential case review at info@axiomtracel.com if you are in that situation.
A feasibility report is the right first step in four specific circumstances.
The loss is significant but the facts are unclear. You know money is gone. You do not yet know whether the counterparty was fraudulent from the start, whether assets have been dissipated, or whether you have a viable defendant. The report answers those questions before you spend on litigation.
The matter has already stalled. You have reported to the bank and the police. Neither has produced a result. You are considering whether to instruct lawyers – but you do not yet know whether there is anything left to recover. The report gives you that view.
A lawyer or funder is assessing viability. Referring lawyers and litigation funders regularly commission feasibility reports before deciding whether to take a matter forward. The report provides the foundation their due diligence requires: documented asset trail, instrument assessment, jurisdictional map, and a candid cost-benefit analysis.
The loss is cross-border and multi-jurisdictional. The assets moved through more than one country, or through on-chain and off-chain channels in combination. The report identifies which forums can act and in what sequence, avoiding the common mistake of pursuing relief in one jurisdiction while the assets are actually held in another.
How Does Axiom Trace Conduct the Report?
The process begins with an intake call. We take a structured summary of the matter: the sequence of events, the documentation available, the known or suspected identities of the respondent, and the client's immediate objectives. We ask the questions most victims do not know to ask – about wallet addresses, about company registrations, about the structure of the transaction that preceded the fraud.
From there, we run three parallel workstreams. The first is document and data review: bank records, payment confirmations, company searches, UBO register inquiries where available, and any communications that bear on the defendant's identity or asset location. The second is open-source and on-chain investigation: public blockchain records, corporate registries, domain and IP lookups, and aggregated intelligence from financial-intelligence sources. The third is jurisdictional analysis: we identify the courts and regimes that could grant interim relief, assess the quality of each forum, and note where local counsel in the relevant jurisdiction would need to act on the ground.
The final report is delivered in writing. It is structured for use by the client and by any instructed lawyer or funder. It does not contain invented figures, inflated expectations, or guarantees. It contains the facts we could verify, the gaps we could not close, and a clear-eyed assessment of what recovery would require.
A confidential case review is the first step. To request one, contact info@axiomtracel.com.
What Does the Report Look Like Across Borders?
Cross-border asset recovery is not one process. It is several processes running in parallel, sometimes in jurisdictions with no formal cooperation obligation between them. A feasibility report that does not address that reality is incomplete.
Consider a typical pattern we regularly advise on: a business owner in one jurisdiction makes a payment to what appears to be a legitimate counterparty. The payment clears through a correspondent bank in a second jurisdiction. The funds are then converted into a stablecoin at a centralised exchange in a third jurisdiction and moved to a self-hosted wallet. Within days they are fragmented across several addresses, some of which interact with known mixing services.
For a claimant in that position, the hard part is not the claim – it is timing and sequencing across forums. A worldwide freezing order obtained in the claimant's home jurisdiction may, in principle, reach assets outside that forum. But enforcement in the jurisdiction where the exchange operates requires separate proceedings, local counsel, and a court that will recognise or independently grant relief. The feasibility report maps each of those steps: which can run concurrently, which must run in sequence, and where the critical bottleneck is.
On public blockchains, on-chain movements remain traceable even after funds have moved through multiple wallets. That is not a guarantee of identification – but it means the trail does not simply end. Wallet clustering and attribution techniques can narrow the field of possible defendants substantially, often to a level sufficient to support a proprietary injunction against persons unknown.
We have traced funds through structures combining offshore shell companies, nominee directors, and on-chain fragmentation. In each case, the feasibility report was the document that told the client – and their funder – whether the investment in litigation was rational.
What the Report Cannot Do – and Why That Matters
This section exists for a reason. There are operators in the recovery market who will tell you, after any loss, that recovery is likely, that they have contacts inside exchanges or enforcement agencies, and that a fee paid now will unlock a return. Those representations are false. They are the hallmarks of a second-stage scam, targeting people who have already been victimised once.
A feasibility report cannot promise recovery. No legitimate service can. Recovery depends on the specific facts: whether assets still exist, whether the defendant is identifiable, whether a court with jurisdiction is prepared to grant urgent relief, and whether enforcement in the relevant jurisdiction is realistic. All of those conditions must be satisfied, and none of them are within the control of any investigation or legal team.
The report also cannot act as a substitute for local counsel. Where proceedings must be filed – a freezing application, a disclosure order, enforcement of a foreign judgment – an admitted lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction must act on the ground. Axiom Trace coordinates; we do not hold ourselves out as admitted to practise local law in any jurisdiction.
What the report can do is give you an honest answer, early, before you commit significant resources to a course of action that may not be viable. That honest answer has its own value. If recovery is not realistic, knowing that early is worth the cost of the report. If it is realistic, the report is the foundation on which every subsequent step is built.
To assess whether your loss is worth pursuing, contact info@axiomtracel.com.
Viability Signals – How to Read Your Own Position
Before commissioning a full report, it is worth asking yourself a set of threshold questions. They will not replace professional assessment, but they will help you frame the conversation.
Can you identify the receiving account or wallet? Even a partial address or a bank reference number is a starting point. The absence of any identifier makes the first stage of the investigation significantly harder, though not always impossible.
How much time has passed? Hours and days matter. Weeks and months reduce options but rarely eliminate them entirely, particularly where funds moved on-chain and the trail is preserved on the public blockchain.
Is there a viable defendant? A traceable individual, a company with a registered address, an exchange with a compliance function – any of these creates a potential target for relief. Pure anonymity, where the perpetrator has left no discoverable footprint, is the hardest scenario.
What is the quantum of the loss? A feasibility report costs money. The cost-benefit calculation is different at different loss levels. For smaller losses, the report may itself be the limit of what is economically rational. For larger losses – particularly those in the mid-six-figure range and above – the report is typically the cheapest step in a process that could recover multiples of its cost.
Does the matter cross a border? Cross-border losses are harder to recover than domestic ones. They are also, in many cases, more susceptible to forensic tracing because the movement of assets leaves records in multiple jurisdictions that can be assembled into a coherent picture.
For a more structured assessment of where your matter sits, you may also find it useful to review the fraud typologies and first-response guidance at Axiom Trace's fraud typologies and victim guidance.
Related Services and Further Reading
A feasibility report is the starting point. Depending on what it finds, the next steps may involve one or more of the following:
- Asset tracing – deep-dive forensic investigation following the money through banking, corporate, and on-chain channels.
- Cross-border enforcement – coordinating interim relief, disclosure orders, and enforcement of foreign judgments or arbitral awards across jurisdictions.
- Crypto asset recovery – on-chain tracing, exchange choke points, and freezing digital assets before they are cashed out.
For a specific cross-border case study illustrating how recovery efforts can be structured after funds leave a major financial centre, see our guide on recovering scam proceeds sent to Belize.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What should I do in the first hours after a fraud?
A: Act immediately on three fronts. First, contact your bank and request a payment recall or account freeze on the receiving account – speed matters here, and banks can sometimes act within the same business day. Second, preserve all evidence: screenshots, emails, transaction records, and any communications with the perpetrator. Third, seek an early assessment from a specialist. Reporting to the bank is necessary; it is not sufficient. The first hours determine how many recovery options remain open.
Q: Is my loss realistically recoverable?
A: That depends entirely on the specific facts of your matter: where the assets went, whether a defendant is identifiable, which forums have jurisdiction, and whether assets still exist in a reachable form. No legitimate firm can answer that question without examining the evidence. A feasibility report is the structured way to get an honest answer. Be cautious of any service that tells you, without examining the facts, that recovery is likely or guaranteed – that is a warning sign, not reassurance.
Q: How do I avoid a second, recovery-focused scam?
A: After a fraud, victims frequently receive approaches from operators claiming to specialise in fund recovery, often citing insider contacts, government databases, or proprietary technology. These approaches are almost always a second fraud targeting the same victim. Legitimate asset recovery firms do not cold-approach fraud victims, do not promise outcomes, and do not ask for large upfront fees before any analysis of the matter. Axiom Trace charges for a defined work product – a feasibility report – and is explicit from the outset about what that product can and cannot tell you.
About Axiom Trace
Axiom Trace is an independent boutique focused on cross-border and crypto asset recovery. We trace assets that have moved across borders or on-chain and coordinate their freezing and recovery – working with defrauded principals, insolvency practitioners, and the lawyers and funders who refer them. We work lawfully and within applicable sanctions regimes, alongside local counsel where proceedings must be filed.
We have conducted feasibility assessments and full recovery mandates across a wide range of fraud typologies, from business email compromise and investment fraud to asset stripping in insolvency contexts. Our work combines forensic tracing, jurisdictional analysis, and coordination of interim relief – always anchored in a realistic assessment of what the facts support. We do not promise outcomes. We give clients the information they need to make rational decisions.
To discuss a matter, contact info@axiomtracel.com.
Disclaimer: This publication is for general information only and is not legal advice, nor a promise or prediction of recovery. No outcome is guaranteed. Asset recovery depends on the specific facts and on the law and procedure of each relevant jurisdiction, where local admitted counsel must act. Axiom Trace assumes no liability for actions taken or not taken based on this material. For advice on your situation, contact info@axiomtracel.com.
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