This ain’t your usual law enforcement tale. Sheriff Chuck Havard from Jasper County, Texas, decided to roll up his sleeves and take matters into his own hands.
When a local family got scammed out of $25,000 by some con artist pretending to be a government agent, Havard didn’t just file a report.
No, he went full mafia boss on a Bitcoin ATM, physically cutting it open to recover the stolen loot. He sliced open a crypto kiosk like it was a vault in some old-school heist movie.
Illicit funds?
Now, these Bitcoin ATMs? They let you buy or sell crypto with cash or cards, but instead of a bank account, they connect to digital wallets.
Quick, easy, and often with little ID checks, perfect for the good, the bad, and the scammers.
The fraudster told the family to dump their cash into a Bitcoin address via this very ATM, and poof, the money vanished into the digital abyss. Or did it?
Sheriff Havard, armed with a search warrant and a serious attitude, busted open the machine operated by Bitcoin Depot and managed to recover about $32,000. That’s some serious street justice right there.
But hold your applause, this move pretty much stirred up a hornet’s nest online. Crypto fans on Reddit started buzzing, asking if the sheriff went too far.
Some said it was like smashing a store’s entire cash register because of one bad sale. Critics argued that unless Bitcoin Depot was in on the scam, tearing up private property wasn’t cool.
To serve and protect
Havard? He’s standing tall, saying his job is to protect the people of Jasper County from these digital snake oil salesmen.
He admits crypto crimes are tricky, and the scammer’s still out there, but he’s ready to use every tool in his arsenal to fight back.
This incident shines a harsh spotlight on a bigger problem, crypto ATM fraud. The elephant in the room, if you like it.
The FBI reports nearly 11,000 scams involving these machines in 2024 alone, with losses topping $246 million, a 31% jump from the year before.
What it takes
Meanwhile, the threats keep piling up. Cybersecurity firm Cisco Talos uncovered North Korean hackers targeting crypto pros with fake job offers to steal wallet info.
Law enforcement and regulators are stuck trying to balance protecting people without turning crypto into a no-go zone.
So yes, while sheriff Havard’s unusual move might ruffle feathers, but it’s a sign that when the system’s slow, sometimes you gotta stretch a few rules to protect the good guys.
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