Amidst a series of cryptocurrency scams, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has asserted that crypto ATMs are one of the major methods that scammers are exploring to defraud victims of their hard-earned money, per a report.
The security agency informed the members of the public to be wary of pig butchering scams because it has become a growing phenomenon. Pig butchering scam was described as a condition in which an individual poses as an age-long friend to defraud victims.
The agency further warned that victims of these pig-butchering crypto scams hardly have means of recovering their funds because funds have been transferred through cryptocurrency.
In a similar vein, the commission asserted that victims are usually directed to use crypto ATMs to initiate transactions to guarantee anonymity.
According to Coin ATM Radar report, there are approximately 35,000 cryptocurrency ATMs in the United States alone. It was established that the U.S. accounts for approximately 87.4% of worldwide crypto ATMs.
Earlier in January, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued a stern warning as regards crypto ATM scam, which has seen a monumental rise with loss of huge funds according to the Grayscale report.
As a consequence, members of the public have been urged to always verify and validate any link, especially investment opportunities before latching on to it.
Rising Cases of Crypto Scam
There have been rising cases in the number of crypto scams. One of the leading Nonfungible token (NFT) projects, Beeple, recently encountered an attack on its URL link by phishing scammers according to its Twitter post.
It is noteworthy that the FBI reported in August that about $1.9 billion had been lost to cryptocurrencies in just 2022.
As a result, investors in decentralized finance (DeFi) projects have been urged to only consider platforms with finished code audits whenever they want to invest so as to prevent smart contract vulnerabilities that will lead to loss of funds.
