The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has reached out to over 90 people to stop crimes that are involved with cryptocurrency ATMs. The AFP authorities have operated with the government agency AUSTRAC and found that many people who were using these ATMs were victims of scams and not the criminals.
Among them, one victim was a 77-year-old widow. She has lost her AUD 433,000 (about $281,947) in a dating scam. She had met a man online on a dating app who pretended to be from Belgium.
He tricked her into believing that she could make and earn money by investing in Bitcoin for two years. He showed her fake papers saying he had earned AUD 13,000 ($8,464) in a week. He advised her to take cash from a regular ATM and put it into a Bitcoin ATM.
In 18 months, she lost all her savings, which took her 40 years to earn. Another woman in her 70s lost over AUD200,000 ($130,000) after believing a fake ad that promised big profits from investing in cryptocurrency.
As per the reports, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) found 21 people who were either at risk of being scammed or involved in illegal activities using crypto ATMs. One person was charged with a crime called property laundering, and four others were warned because they might have been buying drugs or helping criminals move money, known as being “money mules.”
The victims are hoping to get back the money they had lost in scams. AUSTRAC started this crackdown after setting new rules for crypto ATMs on June 3 to stop scams. They plan to focus on crypto crimes that are committed in 2025. AFP Commander Graeme Marshall told people to be aware of such frauds and not to trust anyone who is promising quick money returns or asking people to pay with cryptocurrency.
From January 2024 to January 2025, Australia’s online cybercrime system has obtained a total of 150 reports of crypto ATM scams, which highlighted a total loss of over AUD3.1 million ($2 million). On 3rd June, AUSTRAC also announced that it will implement new rules for crypto ATM operators to curb crypto crimes.