Last year, Virginians lost $350 million to scammers who called or texted them and convinced them to convert their money to bitcoin. Marcus Baggett is a detective with the Albemarle County Police.
"What we’re seeing mostly is cash being deposited into a bitcoin ATM, which we have many scattered throughout the county and city," he explains. "A lot of these victims are elderly, and they are responding to a phone call threatening to them, impersonating law enforcement, impersonating a family member of friend who is in need."
Often, these scammers are in other countries where large call centers operate. Adam Kulpa is with the high-tech crimes division of Virginia State Police.
"There are investment scams, there are romance scams, and they seek to pull on the heartstrings of the individual and to do whatever they can to get the most amount of money they can from them," Kulpa says.
Unfortunately, he adds, many people fail to report the crime promptly.
"A lot of people don’t report it because they’re ashamed. They’re like, ‘How did I get scammed.’[They’ll sit on it and they’ll stew about it, and then they’ll talk to a friend or family member, and then they’ll finally say, ‘You know what? Maybe we should report it.’"
By then, he says, tracking the money and getting it back is much more difficult. One key, he adds, is to save any information about the transaction.
"Fortunately, if you do put money into a bitcoin ATM, it prints a receipt with the address on there, so as long as they keep the receipts, we have a really good starting point."
Cases should be reported to local police, but Kulpa says they’ll need help from the state.
"A lot of localities do not have the software to trace this bitcoin. We have the capabilities to do it, and we have had some success in it as well."
And the F.B.I may get involved. That’s where Heather Harris works as an intelligence analyst. She warns that scammers often approach victims with a sense of urgency.
"They convince them that they need to convert their money, and it might be because they want to put their money in safekeeping, because they think that the whole banking system has been compromised, or they think that a loved one is going to be harmed."
So she advises the public to disregard any text or phone call asking for payment in bitcoin.
"There is no legitimate business, government agency or bank that is going to demand our U.S. citizens pay or send money through cryptocurrency."
And, she adds, if people are asked to send money, they should talk to someone at their bank about whether the request might be a scam.
