There are more than 70 cryptocurrency ATM’s in Evansville — this is where historically people could buy or send digital currency like bitcoins at a kiosk just like an ATM. But not anymore, as of Tuesday.
Evansville Police Department Sergeant Nathan Vancleave said they’re now illegal in Indiana because they have been used to defraud vulnerable people out of a lot of money.
“The number of reports has doubled each year for the last four years, with a total over $400,000 in losses, with each individual loss an average of $11,000 ," he said. "So I've spoken with many victims of this crime.”
One company alone, Bitcoin Depot, has 77 machines in Evansville. There’s a bitcoin ATM at this East Side Evansville Convenience store. This shop clerk has seen scams happen twice, with the police involved.
This emergency law was approved by Gov. Mike Braun this week, written by State Rep. Wendy McNamara (R-Dist 76) who worked with the EPD and the AARP.
“Typically, your elderly would get a call saying they missed jury duty or have a grandson in jail, and you need to go to this cryptocurrency kiosk and put in $10,000 to $20,000.”
The fraudsters would walk the unsuspecting victim through the process on the phone, and once money is sent, it can’t be returned.
“There is no oversight,” McNamara said. “There's no regulation of them in the state of Indiana, and so people would use them to traffic money, wash money, laundering money. Really no legitimate purpose for these to exist.”
She said in the three months since her bill was introduced, there was about $40,000 scammed from local residents.
“It's a nationwide problem, costing people across the nation billions of dollars,” she said.
Evansville Police spent Tuesday informing shop owners that they’d need to unplug the machines to follow the law, said Vancleave.
“We just informed them that it went into act yesterday,” he said. “It's an emergency declaration, so it takes effect immediately. And just told them, ‘If the machine was still operating, needed to unplug it to make sure they weren't held liable.’”
He focused on independently-owned machines. Vancleave said Bitcoin Depot is voluntarily remote-deactivating their machines.
As leader of the financial crimes unit, he said of all the modern financial scams, these cryptocurrency machines were used to steal the most from individuals, but other fraud avenues remain.
“Another big one is gift cards, and then another big one is just mailing physical money in the mail, or now peer to peer, so through CashApp or other programs like that. So they will try other things.”
He said one problem is that these machines are still legal in Kentucky, “so they could potentially send our citizens over there to send money out,” he said. “The next thing would potentially start looking at what we can do to help with the gift card situation. But right now we're still celebrating this win.”
Bitcoin Depot alone still has in excess of 24,000 locations around the world, according to the company website.
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