SAN ANTONIO – Amid the continued popularity of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, it’s not hard to find cryptocurrency ATMs or kiosks at gas stations and neighborhood corner stores.
But it’s not hard to find them at the center of various scam attempts, either.
The San Antonio Police Department and the U.S. Secret Service worked together to place posters next to dozens of the machines around San Antonio on Thursday, warning of potential cryptocurrency scams with a number to the Secret Service’s San Antonio field office.
Special Agent in Charge Brian Gibson said SAPD had asked for assistance in a public awareness campaign and called the scams a “nationwide issue.”
Cryptocurrency ATMs allow users to buy cryptocurrency for cash and deposit it into a digital wallet. But scammers manipulate their victims to ensure the cryptocurrency is bought on their behalf.
Once the money is in the scammer’s digital wallet, it’s hard to get back.
“We can trace, but it moves a lot faster than traditional money, and once it hits a foreign exchange then it’s a lot harder for us to recover funds,” U.S. Secret Service Investigative Analyst Laura Bravo explained to KSAT.
And the standalone nature of the machines means fewer people who might step in and foil a scammer’s ruse.
“Using a crypto ATM is going to remove the person from speaking to an actual teller at a bank,” Bravo said. “It’s going to isolate the individual so that the scammer can get them to do whatever it is they’re asking to do.”
FBI statistics show the number of reported losses scammers made away with has been growing. In 2025, it was more than $333 million, compared to nearly $247 million in 2024.
The scams that lead someone to one of these kiosks vary. It could be someone faking a romantic relationship, pretending to be from your bank or imitating a government agency.
In February, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said scammers kept a couple, whose son was a “recent inmate” at the jail, on the phone for eight hours as they directed them to multiple locations to use crypto ATMs.
“These folks were in good faith, thinking that they were really dealing with people from the sheriff’s office, bail bond office, and they got taken for $25,000,” Salazar said.
KSAT asked Bravo about what to be aware of regarding scams involving cryptocurrency ATMs.
- Be suspicious of payment requests through cryptocurrency: There are reasons to use cryptocurrency in a legitimate form, Bravo said, but “if you have no reason to use cryptocurrency in your normal day-to-day life and you are being instructed to use cryptocurrency for any sort of payment, I would consider that a red flag.”
- Be wary of callers stressing urgency: “If you’re being told that it’s some sort of emergency, they want you to do this as fast as possible, right? They want to keep you in the sense of, ‘Oh my God, I need to do that right now,” Bravo said. “If you feel a sense of urgency, but yet you still have that gut feeling that it might not be legitimate, I would take that question that you have in your gut and follow that through."
- Verify claims and callers’ identities independently: Don’t follow the email address or phone number a possible scammer is sending you “because obviously the bad guys are going to want you to call their number and they’re going to provide you the number,” Bravo said. You should also call law enforcement if you’re in doubt whether someone is trying to scam you.
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