Wallet trace — what the Professor maps:

• Deposit transaction hashes from the claimant wallet to the Paymax platform receiving address.
• Forwarding wallets the platform consolidated through — typically two to four hops on the deposit chain (BTC / ETH / USDT-TRC20 / BSC / Polygon / Arbitrum / Optimism / Avalanche).
• Bridge crossings between chains, where the operator moves value into a chain with deeper liquidity ahead of the off-ramp.
• Mixer interactions — Tornado-Cash variants, Sinbad, and the smaller obfuscation services that operators rotate through under regulatory pressure.
• Final off-ramp wallet — the centralised exchange deposit address that received the consolidated funds.

The annotation continues — off-ramp endpoint:

• Endpoint counterparty in the Paymax casefile is named — typically a major venue such as OKX or Bybit, sometimes Gate.io or KuCoin, occasionally Binance or Huobi when liquidity allows.
• Paymax’s off-ramp wallet is then matched against compliance feeds the Professor maintains a standing read on.
• Leverage is applied to that named counterparty — the Paymax packet is assembled to a standard the off-ramp’s compliance desk reads and acts on.
• If the Paymax off-ramp is non-cooperative, the casefile escalates to IC3, the relevant state AG, and (where dollar value warrants) a civil-discovery overlay for KYC.

Recovery pathway — how this casefile moves toward filing:

1. Triage on Paymax — submission read against a no-go checklist, written go/no-go returned to the claimant inside one business day.
2. Trace on Paymax — deposit pathway mapped across chains, captured with chain-of-custody hashes.
3. Identify on Paymax — off-ramp endpoint matched to a named exchange counterparty.
4. File the Paymax packet — IC3, state AG (where loss meets state thresholds), off-ramp compliance desk, and civil-discovery overlay where dollar value supports it.
5. Follow-through on Paymax — the Professor stays on the casefile until a documented next step exists.

What the on-chain reading covers:

• Chains in scope for Paymax — the chains that handle the volume of casefile activity in this segment (BTC, ETH, Tron, BSC, plus L2s).
• Off-ramps in scope for Paymax — named centralised exchanges with compliance leverage.
• Filings supported on Paymax — IC3, state AG, off-ramp desk, civil discovery as applicable.

What is never asked of a claimant:

• Paymax policy — seed phrases are never requested.
• Paymax policy — remote-access logins are never requested.
• Paymax policy — no upfront cash retainer to scope.
• Paymax policy — no guaranteed-recovery language. None.
• Paymax policy — no unsolicited calls. The Professor responds in writing only.