Seattle-based crypto ATM operator Coinme has agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty for violating day by day transaction limits for crypto ATMs in California.
California caps crypto ATM transactions at $1,000 per buyer per day beneath a regulation introduced in final yr. The corporate additionally failed to incorporate required disclosures on buyer receipts at its kiosks positioned in grocery and comfort shops throughout California, in response to California’s Division of Monetary Safety and Innovation.
It marks the DFPI’s first enforcement motion beneath the state’s Digital Monetary Belongings Regulation.
Underneath the consent order, Coinme has agreed to pay the penalty, together with $51,700 in restitution to an aged California resident who claimed to have been scammed.
The enforcement motion ought to “ship a powerful message” to crypto kiosk operators that the state “means enterprise when it requires digital asset corporations to comply with the principles that assist stop scammers from benefiting from unsuspecting Californians,” mentioned KC Mohseni, a DFPI commissioner.
Cointelegraph reached out to Coinme for additional remark.
Crypto ATM scams rising
Scammers trick victims into buying crypto belongings at ATMs and transferring funds on to fraudsters’ wallets, mentioned the DFPI.
The Digital Monetary Belongings Regulation was enacted in 2023 particularly to deal with these dangers by kiosk operator rules.
In April, the FBI reported that there have been nearly 11,000 complaints and over $246 million in losses related to crypto ATM scams in 2024, a 31% enhance from 2023. Two-thirds of rip-off victims have been over 60 years previous.
Crypto ATMs banned in Washington
Washington’s second-biggest metropolis, Spokane, took issues a step additional by banning crypto ATMs final week.
Associated: Crypto ATM community shrinks as US loses 1,200 machines in days
The measure was imposed to guard residents from scams and cash laundering, with native police claiming that funds deposited into crypto kiosks ended up “in locations like China, North Korea and Russia.”
Aussie ATM sting
In the meantime, Australian federal police mentioned on Wednesday that they’d contacted greater than 90 residents as a part of a crackdown on felony use of crypto ATMs, together with pig butchering victims and suspected offenders.
In Texas, a county sheriff final week took a power-cutting instrument to a neighborhood crypto kiosk after a household was reportedly scammed out of $25,000.
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