Australian financial watchdog AUSTRAC, or Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre, said that “scam victims, money mules, and suspected offenders” are the top users of crypto ATMs in the country. According to the agency’s press release, its Cryptocurrency Taskforce monitored the biggest crypto ATM transactions in each state and believed that many of these are linked to scams. Unfortunately, most of these transactions were related to victims or mules who were forced to deposit the money into the machines.
“We suspected that a large volume of crypto ATM transactions were probably illicit, but disturbingly, our law enforcement partners found that almost all the transactions we referred involved victims rather than criminals,” said AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas. “We came across a woman in her 70s who had deposited more than AU$430,000 (approximately US$280,000) into crypto ATMs after falling victim to romance and investment scams. Tragically, she has no way of recovering that life-changing amount of money.”
Unfortunately, the authorities also identified another victim around the same age who lost more than AU$200,000 (almost US$130,000). She thought she was depositing the amount to a legitimate trading firm as part of an investment, but instead lost it all through the crypto ATM.
Fraud and scams like these have been going on for several decades now, so traditional financial institutions now have several safeguards in place to help protect customers against them. However, since cryptocurrency is relatively new, it still hasn’t developed safeguards against its illicit use. Aside from that, the inherent decentralized nature of this technology means that it’s hard for nations to enforce rules on its use.
Crypto ATMs are making it easier for users to convert their cash into cryptocurrency. But because it’s easy to use and looks similar to the usual ATMs that many people are used to, it’s also making it easier to scam those who aren’t tech savvy, thinking that they’re simply depositing money into a bank account.
Although it’s not impossible, it’s insanely difficult to recover the scammed money. Even though transactions can be easily tracked, the anonymity of wallets makes it difficult to determine who owns them. Aside from that, the victims have to go through legal means to have the stolen cash returned. And even though a court might order the funds returned, the money must be parked on an exchange that recognizes the law of the state that issues the order.
The increasing number of incidents like this, combined with the easy availability of crypto ATMs, suggests that the government must respond sooner or later. The Australian government said that it’s “coordinating a national prevention and education campaign”, especially as many people are still likely not knowledgeable about online scams and cryptocurrencies. In the meantime, we’ll have to be vigilant against scams like this and warn the people around us to be wary when someone asks them to deposit any amount of money in a crypto ATM — especially if they don’t use cryptocurrencies in the first place.
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