The Massachusetts Attorney General is suing crypto ATM operator Bitcoin Depot for allowing criminals to use its machines to scam the state’s residents, the latest example of increasing scrutiny on the business practices of one of the world’s largest operators of the machines. “We’re alleging that instead of handling consumers’ money in good faith, Bitcoin Depot used misleading sales tactics to overcharge its customers and knowingly facilitated crypto scams that robbed Massachusetts consumers of more than $10 million dollars,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a press release. The suit, filed Feb. 3, is the latest in a series of similar actions against crypto ATM operators across the country in response to growing concerns that sophisticated fraudsters are using the machines to bilk victims, especially the elderly, out of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. In 2024, the FBI received nearly 11,000 fraud complaints involving crypto ATMs, a 99% increase from the previous year.
The complaints represented about $247 million in alleged losses. Those numbers are rising, with around $333 million lost to the same type of fraud between January and November 2025. Over half of the money that passed through Bitcoin Depot kiosks in Massachusetts between August 2023 and January 2025 was scam-related, according to the complaint. The allegations against Bitcoin Depot echo those from a 2025 lawsuit by Iowa’s attorney general.
In that case, an analysis concluded that more than 50% of the company’s transactions in the state between October 2021 and July 2024 appeared to involve scams. Bitcoin Depot wrote “We strongly disagree with the characterization that Bitcoin Depot facilitates scams or misleads users.” The company, it said, has “built our business around compliance and consumer protection,” working with law enforcement to address criminal activity on the machines and implementing multiple safeguards to protect its customers from scams. The allegations echo those from a 2025 lawsuit by Iowa’s attorney general.
In that case, an analysis concluded that more than 50% of the company’s transactions in the state between October 2021 and July 2024 appeared to involve scams. Bitcoin Depot was long aware that its machines were being used for scams, according to the Massachusetts complaint, which alleges that members of the company’s due diligence team in 2021 concluded that 90% of customers the team interacted with were scam victims. One employee warned a top Bitcoin Depot executive that its kiosks were “facilitating money laundering at an ‘extreme volume.’” Bitcoin Depot subsequently made some of its compliance measures “less effective,” the complaint alleges, noting that “this change facilitated more fraud.” Meanwhile, the company’s own internal metrics showed that between 13% and 16% of the money that passed through its machines from March to September of 2023 was scam-related, according to the complaint.
Circle K received millions of dollars in rental fees from the partnership, while Bitcoin Depot pocketed a cut of each transaction, taking between 15% and 50% percent of the deposits for itself. Circle K management was aware the machines were being used to defraud customers and even their own employees. But the convenience store chain chose to renew its contract with Bitcoin Depot anyway.
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