In August, FinCEN issued a Notice urging financial institutions to be on the lookout for convertible virtual currency kiosks (sometimes referred to as CVC kiosks or cryptocurrency ATMs) that may be used for scam payments and/or to launder drug and other illegal proceeds. FinCEN has seen an increase in scammers and Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) using CVC more frequently, in order to expedite funds transfers and make it difficult for law enforcement to recover the funds.
The Notice provides a listing of 15 red flags that kiosk operators and other financial institutions are urged to look for, which includes red flags that could indicate a CVC owner or operator is not complying with applicable regulations. Many of the red flags are related to transactions just below reporting thresholds, kiosk daily limits or kiosk owners/operators that require little or no information in order to conduct transactions.
FinCEN asks that SARs filed on activity related to this Notice include FIN-2025-CVCKIOSK in SAR Field 2 (Filing Institution Note to FinCEN as well as the Narrative.