UK resident got scammed to send money to an Australian bank account. What I did and what to do next?

Hello, I live in England and this is a long post about how I got scammed, presenting my story and asking for advice. Much appreciated to all who go through all of it and send their ideas.

Also posted in r/AusLegal here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AusLegal/comments/iujgpq/uk_resident_got_scammed_to_send_money_to_an/

So I met a person online, and after chatting a bit she started showing me her gold trading profits. At first I didn't care that much, but she kept showing me profits and I said I wish I knew how to trade like that. She puts me in contact with this person, who is supposed to teach me how to trade.

This teacher tells me that I will start with simulated gold trading, and after some time I would move on to real trading. After a couple of days of trading she says I'm ready to trade for real, I say I need more time to do simulated trading. We do another day of simulated trading and she says I'm ready and I should start trading with real money.

Hindsight is 20/20, I can't believe what I was thinking. But I did do some checks on these people, like I aske them for pictures of themselves and I google image searched them. No results, not stock images, so I'm like, okay, a good sign.

I ask the first person to have a phone call to talk, we do. Okay, fair enough.

I ask the first person to send me the link to her design company that she said she owns, and she sends it over. Site is in Chinese but it's filled with a lot of images of homebuilding and some English sentences about home design. I ask her for more photos and it seems okay.

I do the same with the "teacher". Google image search, no stock images, no results. I google the platform she's asking me to open an account on, can't find anything about it saying it's a scam. The reviews for the iphone app are mostly 4-5 stars, with people in the reviews complaining that the previous version of the app was better.

So after all this, on the 11th of September I transfer the minimum needed to start investing, USD 10,000. I do this by using Transferwise, so I transfer the money in UK pounds to Transferwise (I live in the UK), the money is converted by Transferwise to USD and is send to the scammer's account to an Australian bank on Friday evening.

I sleep on it, and next day morning I start panicking, I think my instincts started kicking in, and I do some more research online and I found something similar, not exactly the same scam, but something similar where you meet somebody online, start talking, some people even met with these people, and then they say can teach you or know somebody that can teach you to trade (gold, bitcoin, forex, etc). At that point I really panicked and I realised I got scammed.

I try to reach Transferwise, but since it was Saturday, you could only reach them by email, couldn't even call them.

I call the bank in Australia, I tell them what happened, I was scammed and the scammers account is with them and I give them the details of the bank account and everything. So literally after a few hours of the money leaving Trasnferwise I contacted the receiving bank. They told me they will pass it on to the Financial Crime team and look into it.

I file a report with Action Fraud in the UK, I sent the report number to my bank, to the Australian bank and to Transferwise, but to Transferwise only on Monday when I can contact them again.

I search online for some advice, and everybody thinks the best solution is to keep contacting the receiving bank as they could block the account, or the transaction and it could bounce back to Transferwise so I keep doing that. The receiving bank in Australia tells me to contact Transferwise and have them raise a fraud report and to get in contact with the Australian bank.

After numerouse calls with Transferwise asking them to contact the receiving bank where I was told there's nothing they can do after the money has left Transferwise, I resort to calling the bank in Australia again. By this point I raised a cyber fraud report with the Australian police as well and sent the report number to the Australian bank.

I ask the bank in Australia what is there to do, if they will deny the transfer or do something so that money does not leave the Australian bank account, and they said the Financial Crime team is looking into it, but I could also ask Transferwise to raise a recall request and to contact them, but I say I already did but Transferwise keeps telling me they can't do that. The person from the Australian bank tells me it seems like Transferwise is giving me wrong information.

So I decide to call Transferwise again. I reach out to somebody, and they explain it still cannot be done. I'm almost begging them to do it, but they say it cannot be done. I start searching online of any events with TW and recall requests, and I found something where it said Transferwise doesn't want to do it because there's slim chance of getting the money back so they tell customers it cannot be done.

I call Transferwise again and push and complain that I think they're just telling me they can't do it just to get rid of me and the person I'm talking to this time says it can actually be done and she'll do that request for me, and she apologises for her colleagues telling me the wrong information previously. I call the Australian bank again to let them know that Transferwise said they will do the recall and if there is anything I can do. They tell me best thing is for me to keep talking to Transferwise, as the Australian bank has done everything it can.

Now, Transferwise shows you an estimation in days of how long a transfer will take. I did the transfer on Friday the 11th, and Transferwise estimated that the transfer would be completed by the 16th at 9:30 pm UK time. So doing all this I had some hope that something can happen. Mind you, I called the receiving bank a few hours after the transfer was done by Transferwise, and by their estimate had around 4-5 days until the transfer was complete.

I feel like I wasted precious time because Transferwise was not helpful at all, from the start when I raised the scam with them telling me there's nothing they can do, to the moment I had to make around 5 calls just to get them to do the recall request.

The 16th passes, the transfer appears complete in Transferwise and I get a message from the scammer that the funds have arrived and I can start trading. I didn't block them because I didn't want to freak them out and withdraw the money immediately it hits their account.

I posted my long story here to see if there is something I can do. I had hopes that the Australian bank would block the withdrawal and it would bounce back, or they would block the scammer's account and my money would not be withdrawn and the recall would go through. I also have some hopes that based on what the scammer said today, the money is still in the Australian bank account.

I feel like I acted pretty promptly after I realised I got scammed. Contacted the receiving bank, my bank, Transferwise and the authorities both in the UK and Australia.

I don't know what else I could have done to get a more positive outcome, but now I'm asking you, the people of this subreddit, is there anything else I can do? Is there a chance the money is still in the scammer's account and the Australian bank has blocked it?

Do you guys think Transferwise didn't treat me properly by dismissing me off the bat, and only helping me with the recall request after around 10 calls and pushing?

Any advice would be much appreciated. I know I was foolish, I should have trusted my instincts, but I feel I also took some verification steps that I knew from the internet and I contacted every instituion asap after I realised I was scammed, so a few hours after sending the money.

TL;DR I got scammed into sending money to an Australian bank account from the UK. What can I do now?