A serious scam report has appeared on the BitcoinTalk forum against the swap service Lizex. According to user mabji1, the service froze $18,000 USDC belonging to his friend and started pulling the classic scheme involving AML risks and a sudden KYC demand.

The situation followed the usual script: the author's friend successfully made a couple of small exchanges, but when he increased the amount to $18,000, the funds got stuck. Lizex support claimed that the coins received a high AML score and were blocked by their liquidity provider — the KuCoin exchange. However, the thread author didn't take their word for it and began his own investigation. According to user mabji1, he traced the wallet holding the stuck $18,000 and contacted KuCoin support directly. The exchange's representatives officially confirmed that this wallet does not belong to them. This means Lizex is blatantly lying: the money was never transferred anywhere and remains in their hands, while the fabricated "partner block" story is being used to hold the funds and force the client into impossible KYC demands.

In the comments, users quickly recalled the service's history. According to user UserU, Lizex had previously promoted itself aggressively on the forum: they had an official thread and a paid positive-review campaign with escrow of nearly $5,000. User un_rank pointed out the bait tactic: several successful small transactions to lull the victim into a false sense of security, followed by a freeze once the amount is large.

According to user Trêvoid, who runs a directory of no-KYC exchangers, Lizex is a known scam project. They had previously been caught committing fraud on the SimpleX Chat messenger and selectively freezing customer funds. User Coyster expressed bewilderment at how anyone could entrust such large sums all at once to custodial swap services with zero liquidity of their own. And according to user Shishir99, sudden KYC demands are the bane of today's dishonest exchangers, so it's worth checking a service's reputation before making large transactions.

User Coyster chimed in, adding that even under Lizex's own rules, the exchange is obligated to return the funds to the sender's wallet if the client refuses KYC — which is exactly what they failed to do.

As of now, Lizex's official representative has not appeared on the forum for more than two weeks, ignoring the proceedings. This story once again proves that purchased reviews and polished forum threads do not guarantee the safety of your funds.

Update from November 1, 2026: what's been added to the Lizex case since the post

The exchanger did finally state a formal position — on September 21, right in the thread itself. The gist: based on their check, the funds were classified as high-risk, which is why an AML/KYC procedure was kicked off; separately, they said the thread author hid the exchange ID and the transaction details, thereby depriving the forum of any chance to objectively assess the situation, and refused to go through verification. That's as far as the exchanger went: no answer showed up in the thread to the questions of where exactly the money is sitting and why, if KYC was refused, it still hasn't been returned to the sender's address.

The most interesting turn concerns user AB de Royse777 — the same guy who ran an ad campaign for Lizex back in November 2025. He confirmed we're talking about the same service, got on a call with the thread author, got the order ID and the USDC wallet address from him, and posted screenshots of his own correspondence with the exchanger. Per his telling, the picture looks like this: the transaction got a 100% AML score, which caused a Lizex account or subaccount on KuCoin to get blocked, the block was kicked off by a request from Singaporean authorities, KuCoin issued an EDD form, Lizex passed it on to the client, and after the refusal — told him to go straight to law enforcement. On September 22 he said the claim is unfounded so far, since the guy hasn't gone through verification and hasn't challenged its result.

Two weeks later, on October 5, he flipped on that position. His wording: it's impossible to check who actually holds the funds — Lizex or its liquidity provider — but the fact of the funds being lost is visible on-chain, and the exchanger still hasn't shown where the money went. From that he concluded the burden of proof is on Lizex, left a negative review, and backed the trust flag.

Following the advice, the thread author emailed the Singapore police at an address on the spf.gov.sg domain — and got no reply. On October 1 he posted a screenshot of the correspondence, from which, per his words, no solution follows; on October 22 he reported that the Singapore police themselves are waiting for an answer from Lizex — meaning the service, per his words, isn't answering law enforcement either. October 30 — a short note: no answer, no resolution.

Another sign the scheme is repeating. User Trêvoid on September 27 brought up someone else's case for $30,000, where the order page shows a "completed exchange" status, but there's no TXID or transfer confirmation for over a hundred days, and small exchanges get stuck in an endless "Exchanging" status. It's an independent complaint, not a verified fact, but it lines up with the logic other participants describe in the thread.

WeLiveCrypto dropped its own investigation on October 4. Their description of the scheme: funds first land in a wallet controlled by Lizex, go through AML screening, and only then move on to the liquidity provider; at a high score, the money stays with the service, a KYC demand gets issued to the client — and all the while he's just waiting. They called this behavior a potentially selective or conditional violation rather than a normal technical procedure, and slapped the service with a "potential-risk project" status.

A few more details that clarify the mechanics. User noorman0 suggested Lizex can't open an institutional account on KuCoin due to KYB requirements, so it routes big volumes through subaccounts — and then the blocking of one subaccount explains why KuCoin doesn't recognize the wallet the client is talking about. User NotATether advised steering clear of platforms where KuCoin is the liquidity provider. User PX-Z noted the 100% score would be worth double-checking in other services — numbers from different providers often disagree.

Further along the timeline. On October 4, Trêvoid reported he'd written to the exchanger himself, asking them to come into the thread and answer — they promised to get in touch and didn't; the last activity of the Lizex account on the forum dates to September 30. On October 13, the thread author noticed the order page had been edited. On October 15, he filed a complaint with Google Safe Browsing, and user logfiles did the same; as of October 20, per his words, no reaction. The option of a MetaMask blocklist via an issue in the repo was also discussed. On October 22, logfiles suggested not bumping the thread manually and just leaving it as is — the trust flag and negative reviews are already working as a warning.

A separate subplot is the BestChange listing, because here the data diverges. On September 26, the thread claimed Lizex had been disabled or removed from a number of platforms, including BestChange, and dropped a link to the card. Checking the card right now, it's active: the country field says Seychelles, 134 reviews, zero financial claims, total reserves around $30 million, and the service has been on BestChange for about two months. The fresh reviews from October 24–30 are short, cookie-cutter praises about a convenient form and polite support — which proves nothing on its own, but doesn't really look like a normal stream of user reviews either. So the "where's the service registered" question at least gets a partial answer on this card — Seychelles — but it neither adds to nor subtracts from the accusations in the thread.

A trust flag has been created on Lizex, assigned number 3592, and backed by several participants, including AB de Royse777 and logfiles.

The overall takeaway for the reader: over a month and a half, neither side has produced a single document showing who's actually holding the $18,000. The thread author's position is the money is with Lizex, the service's position is it's with the provider, the Singapore police — per his words — is waiting for an answer from the service, and BestChange keeps listing Lizex as an active participant with zero financial claims.

The BestChange card data is dated today; everything concerning the subaccount scheme and the Singaporean authorities' request is known from the words of the intermediary and the correspondence he himself posted — there's no independent confirmation of it in the thread.