A trading app wants an 'anti-money-laundering fee' before you can withdraw: what Taiwan can still trace

First you are allowed to withdraw a little. Then, when you ask for the rest, the account has an error or is under anti-money-laundering review, and another deposit is needed. That is the script Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security described on October 25 after breaking up a ring of more than a hundred foreigners working from a hotel in Thanh Hóa province. According to VnExpress, which reported the briefing the next day, the group found people in Japan, China, Taiwan, the United States, India and South Korea over social media and steered them to fake stock, forex and crypto platforms (VnExpress).

Eighty-eight foreigners and one Vietnamese national have been charged. None of them has been tried, and the investigation is being widened. How many of the victims live in Taiwan, the report does not say.

If a platform is asking you for that fee now, what Taiwan can trace is not the balance on your screen. It is each transfer that actually happened.

The fee is not a legal step

Taxes in Taiwan are assessed by the tax authorities, and we found no Taiwan law or regulation that requires an investor to pay a trading platform a tax, a "release deposit" or a review fee before withdrawing. Every such demand goes into the report, along with the chat it came in, the platform's web address or app name, the agent's account ID and the bank account or wallet address you were told to pay into. 165 is the national anti-fraud line run by the police (165 anti-fraud site).

When the platform asks you to move other members' money

Agreeing can turn a victim into a suspect. A suspect is presumed innocent, yet would have to deal with their own defense before recovering anything. The request can come dressed as a shortcut: receive another member's deposit, forward it, and your review will move faster.

Article 22 of the Money Laundering Control Act bars letting others use your account without a legitimate reason. A first violation draws a police warning. Taking or being promised payment, handing over three or more accounts, or repeating within five years of a warning carries up to three years' imprisonment. Forwarding the money can also be investigated as money laundering under Article 19. Civil claims against people whose accounts were used are discussed in Your Taiwan Account Was Used in a Scam: Can the Victim Make You Pay?

Why the fee belongs in the report

Report only the first deposit, and the later transfers have nothing behind them. Under Article 30(1) of the Regulations Governing Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention by Financial Institutions and Businesses or Personnel Providing Virtual Asset Services, a receiving bank that gets a fraud notice places a hold on the amount reported, or on whatever balance is left. The total that all institutions may hold in one case is capped at the amount in the police notice or in the victim's sworn statement. Article 48 sets the same cap for virtual asset accounts.

So the "tax" and the "deposit" go on the list. One line per transfer works best: date, amount, receiving bank or exchange, account number or wallet address. In Taiwan you can also walk into any bank during business hours and say you have been defrauded; the bank checks your identity and transfer details, has you sign a sworn statement and call 165, and the police are to send an officer within two hours (Article 28).

Where the money landed, not where it started

A wire from a US bank to an account in Taiwan still lands inside Taiwan's system. Once a report reaches Taiwan police, they can have the receiving bank list that account as a warning account and suspend all of its transactions (Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention Act, Article 9(4)), or have the bank hold the reported funds while they verify within what the Act calls a reasonable period (Article 10). The 48-hour limit in Article 30(3)-(4) of the Regulations applies when one Taiwan institution passes the fraud notice on to the next. Reporting from abroad is covered in When Scam Money Lands in a Taiwan Account and You Are Overseas, and how remaining funds in a warning account come back to victims in When a Taiwan bank account is listed as a warning account. A wire from a US bank to an account outside Taiwan never touches these rules.

Crypto follows the same logic. If you bought USDT on a Taiwan exchange and sent it to an address the platform gave you, a hold is possible only where that address sits in an account with a Taiwan virtual asset service provider and the coins are still there (Article 48). Coins that reached a foreign exchange or a private wallet are outside Taiwan's hold and warning system.

Reaching them takes another government. The Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act applies a treaty where one exists and otherwise its own rules (Article 2), on the basis of reciprocity (Article 5). Seizure, freezing of property, enforcement of confiscation and return of criminal proceeds can all be requested (Article 6), but requests normally travel from the Ministry of Justice through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Article 30). A victim cannot file one. What a victim can do is hand investigators the transaction hashes, the destination addresses and the names of the exchanges involved.

The payouts you received

Your own Taiwan account can end up frozen. If it is listed as a warning account, all of its transactions stop, and other accounts in your name lose ATM-card and online-transfer functions (Regulations Governing the Deposit Accounts and Suspicious or Unusual Transactions, Article 3(2) and Article 5). A listing expires after two years and can be extended once, for one year; questions go to the agency that made the listing, with the bank assisting where needed (Article 9).

How would a victim get there? Through the early withdrawals. That money may not have been the platform's own. If it came through an account that also received other victims' transfers, Article 27 requires the bank holding the warning account to check where reported fraud proceeds went and notify the next receiving institution, which must keep following the money. Your account would then get a hold under Article 30. Your chat history and transfer records are how you show you were on the losing end.

If someone is charged

If you have since left Taiwan, the procedure in When Scam Money Lands in a Taiwan Account and You Are Overseas still applies. Victims can file an ancillary civil claim inside the criminal case (Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 487; timing in A Taiwan fraud loss: the damages claim inside the criminal case). Property confiscated by judgment must be claimed within one year after the judgment becomes final (Article 473), and proceeds already actually and lawfully returned to the victim are not confiscated (Criminal Code of the Republic of China, Article 38-1(5)). Fraud victims suing in civil court are temporarily exempt from court fees, and security for a provisional attachment cannot exceed one tenth of the claim (Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention Act, Article 54). Defendants are presumed innocent until a judgment is final, and first-instance judgments can be appealed.

Work a Taiwan lawyer can take on

A useful first piece of work is a loss schedule sorted by where each transfer landed: Taiwan bank, Taiwan exchange, or somewhere outside Taiwan. From there a Taiwan lawyer can draft the criminal complaint, attend police and prosecutor interviews with you, prepare the explanation to the listing agency if your own account is held or listed, apply for the return of remaining funds or confiscated property, and file an ancillary civil claim or a provisional attachment. For coins that went abroad, the work is organizing the transaction records investigators will need. Consultations with an English-speaking lawyer in Taipei are available; see criminal defense and victim representation for the scope. Email wei@hoveringlaw.com.tw. Hovering International Law Firm (昊鼎國際法律事務所), Taipei office: 7F-2, No. 35, Sec. 1, Chengde Rd., Datong Dist., Taipei City 103 (臺北市大同區承德路一段35號7樓之2).

For a wire that left a US bank this month, the number of the account it landed in decides whether anything in Taiwan can still be held.

Sources

Checked October 27, 2026.

• VnExpress, "Chiêu dẫn dụ của nhóm hơn 100 người nước ngoài đến Việt Nam lừa tiền qua mạng," October 26, 2026
• Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention Act (詐欺犯罪危害防制條例), Articles 9, 10, 54
• Regulations Governing Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention by Financial Institutions and Businesses or Personnel Providing Virtual Asset Services (金融機構及提供虛擬資產服務之事業或人員防制詐欺犯罪危害應遵循事項辦法), Articles 27, 28, 30, 48
• Regulations Governing the Deposit Accounts and Suspicious or Unusual Transactions (存款帳戶及其疑似不法或顯屬異常交易管理辦法), Articles 3, 5, 9
• Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法), Articles 19, 22
• Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (國際刑事司法互助法), Articles 2, 5, 6, 30
• Criminal Code of the Republic of China (中華民國刑法), Article 38-1
• Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法), Articles 473, 487
• National Police Agency, 165 anti-fraud website