The machine sits near the front door inside a convenience store on a busy street in Prescott, Arizona, wedged next to an ice cream cooler and a rack of bottled water.
It’s about five feet high and covered in a black-and-gold honeycomb pattern.
There’s a touchscreen, a keypad and a slot to feed in cash.
At first glance it looks like an ordinary ATM – but it’s not. It’s a perpetual crime scene, a key tool in a sinister web of international scams that bilk people out of their savings.
In just four days earlier this summer, four people were defrauded by scammers here. A woman named Jeanne lost $18,000, fed bill by bill into the machine.
Hours later, Patricia lost $3,000 in the same spot.
The next day, $25,000 was stolen from Heather.
Lily walked in two days later and was fleeced out of nearly $8,000.
Since last year, at least a dozen victims were duped out of a total of $118,000 at this machine – a crypto ATM, which turns cash into cryptocurrency.
How the companies behind crypto ATMs profit as Americans lose millions to scams
By Curt Devine, Majlie de Puy Kamp, Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Casey Tolan, Kyung Lah, Amy O’Kruk, Byron Manley and Eleanor Stubbs, CNN
Published October 14, 2025
The victims were led to the Arizona convenience store by an increasingly familiar scam: Crooks had tricked them into believing they were in legal trouble, their bank accounts were hacked or that they had to pay off debts. To fix the "crisis," they were told to feed cash into the crypto ATM – where it was promptly routed to scammers' accounts.
This crime wave was no secret. Local police knew all about it.
But they were all but powerless to stop the scammers.
And what truly frustrates investigators is that US companies, which own and operate crypto ATMs around the country, profit from the fraud while doing too little to help stop it. Prosecutors have likened the machines to a "getaway vehicle" exploited by thieves to quickly escape with the money.
A CNN investigation, which included a review of more than 700 criminal cases and complaints, has found that crypto ATM companies make money by often marking up the price of cryptocurrency by 20% to 30% or more on transactions, including the illicit ones. Despite public claims, they often fail to refund money to victims and aggressively fight police to claw back scam money seized from machines.
The companies have also largely failed to adopt measures that could stifle scammers, such as strict transaction limits, and have heavily lobbied state legislatures to neuter laws that would force them to better protect victims. Some states have passed or proposed laws that closely match model legislation with fewer protections pushed by industry lobbyists.
“These machines are nothing more than conduits for fraud and criminal activity. Period,” said New Jersey state Sen. Paul Moriarty, who sponsored a bill in his state to outright ban the machines. “There’s no other use for them, because if you wanted to buy cryptocurrency you could buy it somewhere else for less.”
The story is increasingly common around the nation. Americans, often retirees, lost around $240 million to crypto ATM scams in the first six months of this year, according to the FBI – about double the pace of similar scams last year.
Status: Pending coins
Market price: $67,000
Sales price: $83,400+24%
Service fee: $3
Cash: $4,300
Bitcoin sent: 0.05155024 BTC
20-30% charge in fees and markups
This is a receipt for an actual Bitcoin Depot transaction from March of last year. Numbers have been rounded.
3/18/24 10:02 AM PDT
While it looks as though Bitcoin Depot only charges a $3 service fee, the company is selling Bitcoin at 24 percent higher than the market rate on this transaction.
On this $4,300 transaction, Bitcoin Depot would have issued the customer around $3,450 worth of Bitcoin, pocketing around $850 on top of the $3 service fee.
In interviews with CNN, four former crypto ATM company employees said that companies are not doing enough to prevent fraud or help victims.
One former senior staffer at a crypto ATM company who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal described the general philosophy at his former employer as, “it’s not my problem if someone is stupid and gets scammed.”
Another former staffer said, "If there was a way to prevent 100% of scams there is no way this industry would survive."
Crypto ATM companies strongly disputed allegations they profit from scams and listed various efforts to protect consumers, such as multiple warnings about scams that are shown whenever their machines are used.
Like the other major crypto ATM operators who responded to CNN, Bitcoin Depot pointed out that users agree to terms of service before transferring money, including a promise to only send money to their own Bitcoin accounts and an acknowledgement of company fees.
“Scams, unfortunately, target every financial service, from banks to wire transfers to gift cards, but they are not representative of our business. The vast majority of our customers use our kiosks for legitimate purposes,” Bitcoin Depot said in a statement, adding that “scams account for only a very small share of overall transactions.”
A spokesperson for CoinFlip, another major crypto ATM firm, said the company also has multiple layers of consumer protections and noted “third-party analysis and reporting have shown our scam rate to be below what’s associated with traditional financial institutions.”
Multiple investigations from attorneys general and financial regulators have concluded many crypto ATM deposits involve scams, findings that came after interviewing hundreds of victims and reviewing thousands of transactions. Last month, the DC attorney general alleged that more than 90% of deposits in one company’s ATMs came from fraud.
Law enforcement officials also say that victims under great duress rarely read terms of service or on-screen warnings as scammers guide them around the company protections.
The proliferation of crypto ATM scams has alarmed authorities. In recent months, the Secret Service has even visited shops where the ATMs are located to hand out paper warnings about scams, while the Treasury Department issued an alert to banks in August, urging vigilance against the fraud.
Some nations have cracked down harder. Authorities in New Zealand, Australia and the UK have all taken steps to limit or outright ban the devices to battle financial crimes.
Local police officers, meanwhile, are seething as they respond again and again to the same machines and find themselves unable to help victims. One sheriff’s deputy in Texas even wielded a power saw to break into a crypto ATM to retrieve cash a victim deposited.
The company with the most crypto ATMs, in response, has mocked and lashed out at police who have seized money.
“Glorious day,” a manager for Bitcoin Depot wrote in an email to one sheriff's office after a court ruled it could take back money deposited in one of its machines by a scam victim. “Which one of you would like to coordinate… the return of our cash?”
That manager chastised another sheriff, saying that he displayed “ignorance and arrogance,” and sent a copy of the US Constitution to officers at another police department, suggesting they need to read it.
Asked for comment, Bitcoin Depot said those messages and others to law enforcement were “unacceptable” and did “not reflect who we are,” adding that the employee who sent them was no longer with the company.
“We’ve reinforced with our team that all law enforcement interactions must be handled with professionalism and respect,” the company said.
The employee’s separation from the company occurred shortly after CNN asked Bitcoin Depot about the messages.
The man on the phone told Shelby ‘Gus’ Cason he would be arrested if he didn’t quickly follow instructions.
He told him a convoluted but convincing tale that involved incriminating information and his bank account in jeopardy.
As a panicked Cason listened at home in Coggon, Iowa, the man directed him to withdraw $15,000 from his bank and then to drive to a liquor store, where he told him to deposit the money into a Bitcoin ATM.
“I was under duress big time,” said Cason, who was 69 at the time and added that he had recently suffered a stroke and wasn’t thinking clearly.
Cason’s story is a familiar one that’s been going on for years.
The first crypto ATMs popped up in 2013 with a simple premise, as Daniel Polotsky, the cofounder of CoinFlip, later said on a podcast: “We make the process really, really easy: Go insert cash. Get Bitcoin.”
The trio of Bitcoin Depot, CoinFlip and Athena Bitcoin operate more than half of all crypto ATMs in the US, with more than 16,000 machines between them, according to Coin ATM Radar, which tracks the devices.
The machines offer an alternative to buying cryptocurrency online — but charge significantly more for each transaction.
As crypto has gone more mainstream, the devices have multiplied and spread from major cities into suburban and even rural areas – like the shop near Cason’s home in eastern Iowa. Convenience stores, gas stations and other shops often charge a fee to crypto ATM operators to host the machines.
As the ATMs have spread, so have scams that use them.
Crypto ATMs are ideal tools for financial scammers, according to police who have investigated the crimes, because they offer a quick way to turn cash into hard-to-recover cryptocurrency.
Scammers coach their often-elderly victims step-by-step to use the machines and convert their cash to cryptocurrency, which then gets deposited into anonymous crypto wallets controlled by the criminals. From there, the scammers can swiftly route the funds to offshore crypto platforms.
“Many agencies don’t even initiate investigations,” said Boise police Detective Brad Thorne. He has worked dozens of cases involving scam suspects around the world but has only helped successfully seize cryptocurrency once.
Across the US, the Federal Trade Commission found fraud losses involving crypto ATMs jumped from about $12 million in 2020 to $114 million in 2023 – nearly a tenfold increase. FBI data suggests the rate of the losses is only increasing.
CNN’s review of hundreds of incident reports and consumer complaints – which totaled more than $11 million in losses, with the average victim losing more than $15,600 – revealed many cases follow roughly the same script that ensnared Cason. Scammers often start by alerting victims to a fabricated problem, then offer a hasty solution that ends with cash funneled into a crypto ATM.
Some of the most common cons involve scammers posing as members of law enforcement or tech-support specialists, often through emails or pop-ups, who coerce victims to pay money to avoid penalties. Other ruses get highly personal.
“I've got footage of you doing filthy things in your house,” one scam email reviewed by CNN states. “With just a single click, I can send this garbage to all of your contacts.”
To further understand how these frauds work, CNN reporters called the phone numbers listed in scam emails without immediately identifying themselves as journalists. The scammers who answered posed as tech support and bank staffers and shared spoofed websites of real businesses. One scammer urged a reporter to stuff nearly $10,000 into a Bitcoin Depot ATM.
When confronted by the reporter, the scammer ultimately dropped his cover story and admitted to working with colleagues to transfer millions in cryptocurrency each month before briefly apologizing and hanging up.
Police try to assist when victims call for help – but often have little recourse. That’s what happened to Cason, the Iowa victim.
When Cason contacted the sheriff’s office in July 2023, investigators got a search warrant for the machine and seized the cash he had deposited, intending to return the money to him.
But Bitcoin Depot argued in court that Cason had authorized the transaction and had agreed to the company’s terms of service when he used the machine. His cash had already been turned into cryptocurrency and transferred away, the company said.
The case went all the way to Iowa's state Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Bitcoin Depot in the spring. Because scammers had convinced Cason to bypass company requirements that users only send funds to crypto wallets they control, the court found Bitcoin Depot wasn’t liable.
Cason never saw the cash again.
Crypto ATM companies have argued fraud is not a significant driver of business, with some highlighting a report by the analytics group TRM Labs, which found that 1.2% of cash-to-crypto transactions were illicit in 2023.
But even the analytics group behind that report acknowledged in a statement to CNN that “the reality is clear: a significant share of scams and fraud move through these machines.”
Another leading analytics firm recently noted a “surge” of crypto ATM scams last year. Bitcoin Depot itself has warned its investors of the issue as early as 2022, disclosing in financial records that its machines and services could facilitate “fraud, money laundering, gambling, tax evasion, and scams.”
For police who have investigated crypto ATMs, there’s little doubt: scammers love to use the machines.
“This is running rampant all over our country,” said John Altman, commander of a Woodbury, Minnesota police team that has investigated multiple crypto ATM scams.
Iowa’s attorney general sued Bitcoin Depot this year, alleging that scams accounted for “more than half of all money taken in by Bitcoin Depot in Iowa” over a roughly three-year period ending in 2024, more than $7 million in scam transactions. The attorney general said in another suit that CoinFlip’s top 20 users in the state were all scam victims. The companies have disputed the claims in court.
Documents show a regulator in Maine denied a license application from Bitcoin Depot in April on the grounds that its crypto ATMs “caused an unacceptably high number of Maine consumers to suffer financial loss.” The state concluded that elderly consumers accounted for more than 70% of money transmitted on its machines in the state over about two years. The regulator also found the company’s ATMs lack “necessary controls, warnings, and safeguards.”
Bitcoin Depot told CNN it disagreed with that finding, pointing to its scam warnings on machines. They also noted that more protections for seniors were being rolled out. The company has appealed, the Maine regulator said.
In September, the District of Columbia’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Athena Bitcoin, another major operator of crypto ATMs, alleging that 93% of deposits on its machines in DC over a five-month period came from scams.
In a statement, Athena Bitcoin disputed the suit’s allegations. “The foundation of our business is providing a safe and convenient customer experience. We have strong safeguards against fraud including transparent instructions, prominent warnings and consumer education,” the company said.
The problem extends beyond US borders.
In June, Australian authorities said they contacted 90 people who were among the biggest crypto ATM users and found that around 85% were scam victims or “money mules” who had been coerced into moving suspected illicit funds through the ATMs, according to AUSTRAC, the country’s financial intelligence unit.
Police say the money stolen in crypto ATM scams usually ends up in foreign countries that are less likely to cooperate with US investigations – making it extremely difficult to recover.
Those anecdotal findings are echoed by a CNN analysis of blockchain data over the last decade, which shows that the bulk of all cash deposited in ATMs operated by the biggest US companies has ended up on exchanges based overseas.
Some law enforcement officials said the prevalence of such overseas transfers raises questions about the companies’ claims that a small minority of their users’ transactions are illegitimate.
Most of the top 10 exchanges that received funds say their services aren’t accessible to US users, and many are based in jurisdictions with historically weak anti-money laundering laws, such as the Cayman Islands and Nigeria, CNN’s analysis found.
“It's a red flag to us, knowing that a large majority of financial crimes that are happening in the United States are run by overseas actors,” said a Secret Service official who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. “It likely is a money laundering indicator if large fees are charged and people are willing to pay those when there are other options that are much cheaper and just as convenient.”
Crypto ATM operators say their devices offer a fast and easy way to send money internationally, and that many customers use the machines to send remittances abroad. “Bitcoin is a global asset, so many transactions naturally flow to international exchanges,” Bitcoin Depot said in a statement.
A CoinFlip spokesperson added that “the farther away in the transaction chain you look, the less it reflects anything related to the original CoinFlip customer activity.”
Crypto ATM companies say they have layers of consumer protections to ensure they are not in the business of profiting from fraud.
Bitcoin Depot highlighted its protections including real-time screening for questionable transactions and requirements for users to provide ID. A spokesperson for CoinFlip described related safeguards, such as live customer service agents and holds placed on transactions deemed high-risk.
But more than two dozen state regulators and members of law enforcement interviewed by CNN said the companies could take immediate steps to crack down harder, such as adopting stricter transaction limits and more aggressively placing holds on suspicious deposits, among other measures.
Others questioned whether the companies have incentives to fully stop the scams.
“I'm not sure these companies really believe it's in their own monetary interest,” said James Brown, Montana’s state auditor.
While some crypto ATM companies such as Bitcoin Depot and CoinFlip say they refund transaction fees for scam victims, the firms’ websites do not clearly publicize that policy, but rather stipulate that transactions are nonrefundable.
Iowa’s attorney general has accused CoinFlip of having no refund policy for scam victims and Bitcoin Depot of having a "secret” refund policy that the company has shared with regulators — but not victims. The companies dispute this.
CNN spoke with ten victims who lost thousands on Bitcoin Depot ATMs and never received fees and markups back from the company. Some said they were rebuffed by the company when they reached out after being scammed, but others said they had no idea they could try to get fees back.
Jacob Arnold of New Mexico said he got “nothing at all” from the company when he reached out after being scammed out of $10,000 that he had set aside for his daughter's education. “There was no recourse for me,” he said.
"It is a somewhat convoluted process with very limited reports of success in getting a refund,” said Nathan VanCleave, a financial investigator with police in Evansville, Indiana. “It’s all discretionary, case-by-case, company-by-company.”
Bitcoin Depot reviews scam cases individually and has refunded millions of dollars in attempted scam transactions, the company said in a statement. “Because crypto is irreversible once transferred, publishing a one-size-fits-all refund policy risks creating confusion,” the company said.
When local authorities have obtained search warrants and seized cash on behalf of victims, crypto ATM companies have pushed in court to keep the money – arguing they’ve already used that cash to purchase the crypto sent to scammers.
In Colorado, for example, CoinFlip reached a settlement last year to reclaim money seized by a sheriff’s office after a couple was scammed out of $38,000. In North Carolina, Bitcoin Depot successfully petitioned a few months later for the return of about $13,000 that police held after a 74-year-old woman was defrauded. An Iowa judge issued a similar ruling last year on a petition from another company.
After police in Centralia, Washington seized $25,000 that a scam victim deposited in a Bitcoin Depot machine in March, a lawyer working for the company demanded that the money “be returned immediately” and argued the fraud “is not Bitcoin Depot’s responsibility,” according to a letter obtained through a records request.
To increase pressure on the department to hand over the cash, Bitcoin Depot began telling other law enforcement agencies in the state that the company would not consider refunding any transaction fees to scam victims until the issue in Centralia was resolved.
“The idea is that when we have these rogue agencies that don't want to listen to law or logic, putting pressure on them from their peers will hopefully curb that behavior,” a Bitcoin Depot manager wrote in an email to another police department. Records show the company has used similar pressure tactics in Georgia and Texas, though Bitcoin Depot said in a statement to CNN its refund policy has never been paused.
Police in Centralia ultimately returned the cash to Bitcoin Depot. The company then mailed a copy of the US Constitution to the department with a note that read, “A gift for you. May all your future warrants be free of 4th amendment violations,” according to a photo of the package.
The message to Centralia police was among those sent by the employee Bitcoin Depot said is no longer with the company.
“It was kind of a slap in the face to the victims,” Chad Withrow, a detective with the Centralia Police Department, said of the package. “There was no consideration for the victims… They don’t care. It’s about money.”
With crypto fraudsters outpacing police, state lawmakers around the country have drafted legislation that aims to blunt scams. But crypto ATM companies have hired lobbyists to sway the regulations in their favor – sometimes even getting lawmakers to file bills with language proposed by the industry.
Since 2023, at least 18 states have passed laws or rules specifically focused on crypto ATMs and scams. The laws impose requirements such as daily transaction limits, refund obligations for fraud victims or other stipulations.
Across the US, crypto ATM companies have collectively deployed more than 150 lobbyists in the last three years, government records show. Those lobbyists have successfully watered down legislation in multiple states by convincing lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to loosen proposed requirements.
In Minnesota, for example, the legislature proposed a bill with a blanket transaction cap of $1,000 per day to cut scam victims’ potential losses.
But the bill that eventually passed last year raised the limit to $2,000 for new users only. The law also added requirements for scam victims to get refunds, including contacting crypto ATM companies and law enforcement within two weeks.
An attorney for CoinFlip, Larry Lipka, testified that he “helped draft” Minnesota’s legislation and wrote in a February email that he “added” language related to refunds to the bill.
Asked by CNN whether industry lobbyists loosened the bill’s requirements, Minnesota state Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, a sponsor of the legislation and a Democrat, replied, “It really came down to compromise.”
She said outright rejecting the industry’s perspective could have jeopardized the bill’s passage, though she said she insisted on having some form of transaction limit, which crypto ATM companies resisted. “I think the industry cares about their bottom line,” she said.
Because the bill only applied that transaction limit to new users, some scammers have circumvented the rule by directing victims to preexisting crypto accounts, Lucas Rogers, a detective in Woodbury, Minnesota, told CNN.
Bills in states including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, North Dakota and Rhode Island followed similar patterns, where proposed transaction limits were softened in the legislation that ultimately passed.
“As soon as I had it drafted, the crypto people came out of the woodwork,” said Rhode Island state Rep. Julie Casimiro, a Democrat. “They wanted much less restrictions.”
In some states, lawmakers have backed bills with language promoted by the industry.
In Missouri, legislators passed regulations this year that match nearly word-for-word model legislation shared by CoinFlip in another state, with no transaction limits or refund requirements, records show.
“This is language that we’ve been pushing in 25, 30 states,” Lipka, the CoinFlip attorney, said in March when he testified in support of the Missouri bill.
Bills proposed in states including Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey contain language that’s nearly identical to that model legislation in various sections, though some have other requirements the companies must now abide by.
A spokesperson for Republican Massachusetts state Sen. Patrick O’Connor, a bill sponsor, acknowledged that the law’s language “is industry backed.”
Some states – including California, Maine and Iowa – have enacted strict $1,000 daily transaction caps and other limits. Vermont temporarily banned new crypto ATMs in the state.
CoinFlip has openly touted its engagement with government officials. CEO Ben Weiss visited the White House in July, played kickball with Florida legislators last year and met with federal lawmakers on Capitol Hill the year before, according to photos he or the company posted on social media. In April, two months after his company was sued by Iowa’s attorney general, CNN spotted Weiss with multiple other state attorneys general on a luxury trip in Rome.
A CoinFlip spokesperson said the company “has a long history of engaging with a wide range of public and private stakeholders, including attorneys general, to provide education and industry-specific guidance to ensure consumers remain protected in an evolving space.” The spokesperson added the company supports requirements for live customer service and other safety features.
In an interview, Bitcoin Depot’s president and chief operating officer, Scott Buchanan, said his company has also suggested regulations to state lawmakers.
“In some states we've proposed the bills in the first place,” he said, noting that he supports certain regulations, such as requirements to add warnings to machines that alert users to look out for scams.
“Our advocacy is for rules that are effective in practice,” the company said.
As the Trump administration has relaxed oversight of the crypto industry, some US senators have sought tighter regulations for crypto ATMs – largely without success.
A proposal that included transaction limits spearheaded by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, was ultimately not included in crypto legislation President Donald Trump signed into law in July. Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican, posted on X last month that she hoped to address the scams.
Some Bitcoin ATM lobbyists have referenced Trump’s pro-crypto policies as they’ve sought to advance their own cause.
“The federal government is looking to promote this and here we are overregulating it,” Dan Claitor, a lobbyist for CoinFlip, said in May during a Louisiana Senate hearing on a crypto ATM bill that later passed. Referencing Trump, Claitor said, “There’s no question he is for cryptocurrency.”
On the state level, at least six other legislatures have introduced bills that could stiffen crypto ATM regulations.
Law enforcement authorities said even without new legislation, crypto ATM companies should change their policies to better stifle scams and help victims.
“If they truly care and they're running a legitimate business, they'd do something to try and protect these people,” said Chad Colston of the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, which seized the cash deposited by Cason, the Iowa scam victim.
Cason told CNN he believes he was stiffed twice – once by a scammer and again when Bitcoin Depot successfully pushed in court to reclaim the cash he deposited.
In July, he filed a lawsuit against Bitcoin Depot that alleges the company has failed to protect users from fraud. Bitcoin Depot has rejected his arguments and asked the court to dismiss the case.
Cason said everyone involved made money except him – the scammer, the ATM company and even attorneys working on the case.
I got screwed, Cason said.
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