Metro county reports more than $2 million lost to cryptocurrency scams

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Bitcoin ATM scams continue to victimize people in Clay County, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for law enforcement agencies to track down the suspects.

“(Bitcoin ATMs) made it so easy and quick for them to defraud people of huge amounts of money. There is so little that law enforcement can do about it. It is very hard to track that down. Most of it goes back outside of America somewhere,” said Sarah Boyd, public relations manager for the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.

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There are 56 Bitcoin ATMs in Clay County, located in convenience stores, smoke shops, pharmacies, and other businesses.

To prevent cryptocurrency scams, law enforcement agencies are posting fliers at Bitcoin kiosks to educate people about potential scams. Liberty Police posted warning signs on all cryptocurrency kiosks in their jurisdiction, and the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office is taking part in a similar effort.

“If somebody you don’t know has called you on the phone and is directing you to withdraw cash and put it in one of those Bitcoin ATMs, it is always fraudulent. There is no legit reason for that to happen,” Boyd said.

The people behind these scams play on the victims’ emotions to get them to drive to a local bitcoin ATM and send money.

“So it’s a lot of different kinds of scams that all end with the same result. So our biggest loss that we saw last year was from a romance scam,” Boyd said.

Sometimes they impersonate law enforcement officers and make up reasons why the victim cannot call a friend or family member. Part of their goal is to get the victim into a state of fight-or-flight when they aren’t thinking rationally.

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“Because if they tell anybody else, somebody who’s thinking rationally will say, that’s ridiculous. That’s a scam. Stop. But when you’re in the moment, and you’re scared, we have people call up numerous times a week in tears because they just got this call. And they’re like shaking. We’re telling them to breathe, you know, like it’s not real. It’s a scam,” Boyd explained.

In cases the Sheriff’s Office investigated last year, Clay County residents lost nearly $200,000 to bitcoin atm scams.

According to Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson, reports from all law enforcement agencies in Clay County showed that approximately 150 victims lost approximately $2.5 million to cryptocurrency scams over 18 months.

“There’s a reason why scammers choose cryptocurrency kiosks as a preferred method of payment. That’s because of the anonymity it provides and how fast they can transfer money, and because those transactions can be untraceable sometimes,” Thompson said.

Thompson says prevention is a top priority for his office.

“So one of our goals is to educate our citizens about the most common types of scams and how to protect against them. As part of that effort, we created fliers that we hope to post on these cryptocurrency machines so that people who are about to put money into it take a second stop and think about what they’re doing before they lose their money,” Thompson explained.

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There are three red flags that everyone should be on the lookout for to protect themselves.

“That’s urgency. The scammer wants you to do something quickly. Secrecy: they want to keep you on the phone. They don’t want you to talk to anybody else. And finally, the payment method. So if someone demands payment with cryptocurrency or with gift cards, that’s a big red flag,” Thompson said.

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