Denver police say a resident was taken for $9,000 in a slick bank-impersonation scam that ended at a bitcoin ATM. Callers posing as bank employees allegedly kept her on the phone while she withdrew thousands of dollars at a branch, then steered her to a cryptocurrency kiosk. Investigators say the suspects also used a screen-share to grab routing information and even told her to leave cash behind for a supposed courier.
According to the Denver Police Department, the ordeal started last Friday when a caller claimed to be from the victim’s bank, warned of “suspicious activity” and demanded that she act immediately. The caller instructed her to stay on the line, walk into her bank, and withdraw $9,000. From there, she was told to feed $1,000 of that cash into a bitcoin ATM and place the remaining money in a box for a “courier” to pick up. Police are urging anyone who gets a similar call to report it both to Denver police and to their financial institution.
How the con unfolded
Scammers in schemes like this often pretend to be bank staff, stir up panic about alleged fraud, and then push victims into moving money through fast, irreversible payment methods. As FinCEN has warned, criminals are increasingly routing these bank-imposter and tech-support scams through convertible virtual currency kiosks, and the agency has laid out a series of red flags for both financial institutions and consumers.
Police advice and resources
Denver police advise that if anyone pressures you on the phone to “fix” a problem by moving money, hang up. Then, call your bank using a phone number you can verify yourself, rather than any number provided by the caller, according to the Denver Police Department. Colorado’s consumer protection website similarly warns that cryptocurrency ATMs are a frequent tool in scams and points residents to reporting options at the Attorney General’s office. StopFraudColorado notes that these machines appeal to scammers precisely because crypto transfers are immediate and very hard to reverse.
Why crypto ATMs are attractive to scammers
Crypto kiosks turn cash into digital currency almost instantly, and once a transaction is recorded on the blockchain, it cannot be undone, which makes it extremely difficult to recover stolen funds. Federal reporting and advisories describe a sharp rise in complaints tied to these kiosks in recent years, and regulators now treat kiosk-related fraud as a national concern. FinCEN details the patterns and warning signs investigators are monitoring.
If you think you were targeted, hang up, contact your bank and local police, and save any receipts, QR codes, or wallet addresses from a crypto ATM transaction. You can file a complaint with the FTC at ReportFraud and consider submitting a report to the Colorado Attorney General at coag.gov/file-complaint so investigators can look for patterns and attempt recovery where possible.
