Need advice: Multiple bank liens after a USDT trade involving PhonePe gift cards
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I joined a WhatsApp group where people were selling USDT at around ₹105 per USDT, with a middleman acting as an escrow.
I was planning to sell roughly ₹80,000 worth of USDT. Instead of sending the payment directly to my bank account, the escrow/middleman gave me PhonePe gift cards as payment.
I already knew how to redeem/use PhonePe gift cards, so I thought the transaction was safe. I redeemed the gift cards into my PhonePe account, then moved the funds through a merchant QR belonging to someone I knew, and eventually transferred the money to my personal bank account.
At the time, I thought this was relatively safe because the gift-card redemption, merchant QR transaction, and final transfer were all handled by me/people I knew. I didn't realize the original source of the funds could be problematic.
Around 1–2 months later, I started getting multiple lien amounts placed on my bank account — for example ₹2,000, ₹2,000, ₹3,500, ₹7,800, ₹9,000, etc. In total, the liens are around ₹55,000.
My bank account has not been frozen; it currently only shows these lien amounts.
The problem is that I no longer have the WhatsApp chat records with the group/middleman because of dispapearing messages and there number was international surely fake,However, I still have screenshots showing the USDT being sent to the person.
What would be the proper way to resolve these liens with the bank/cybercrime authorities? Should I provide the USDT transaction screenshots and explain the complete transaction flow?
I'm looking for genuine advice on what steps I should take next. I don't want to make the situation worse by taking the wrong approach.