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According to the FBI, $240 million was lost to cryptocurrency ATM scams in the first six months of 2025 — about double the pace of similar scams in 2024. The growing pace of crypto ATM fraud has some policymakers pursuing bans and others asking why the nation is blanketed in these machines in the first place.
Spokane Police Detective Tim Schwering started noticing the rise in crypto crime in 2023. “Cases started flowing my way where people were getting ripped off by cryptocurrency machines,” Schwering said. The money would find its way to China, Russia, Nigeria, and other far-off outposts. “You couldn’t get to anyone or get the money back,” Schwering said. People’s life savings in Spokane were wiped away.
Schwering said one man lost $900,000, all deposited into the shadowy crypto ATM at the corner. At least two people lost their life savings and, despondent, then took their own lives. It was usually elderly or lonely people roped in by an overseas crypto criminal masquerading as a romantic interest, or preying on a decline in cognitive function that leads people to become more easily scared, Schwering said. In some cases, scammers posed as government agents threatening to unleash the full power of the IRS. But that would all go away if victims would just go to a crypto machine and deposit $40,000.
