[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 3, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3192-S3193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               GENIUS Act

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last month, the Senate voted to proceed to 
the GENIUS Act, a bill that would regulate the type of cryptocurrency 
called stablecoins. Stablecoins are supposed to tie the value of crypto 
to the value of a dollar, but in 2023 alone, stablecoins differed from 
the value of the dollar more than 600 times.
  Not only are stablecoins and cryptocurrencies volatile but the 
industry has a reputation for scams and fraud. The Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, the FBI, recently reported that last year, 2024, crypto-
related crime was up 66 percent, and Americans lost--now get this--$9.3 
billion to crypto's scammers. Nearly 150,000 complaints were filed 
following crypto fraud, including more than 6,000 in my home State of 
Illinois.
  How does it work?
  Your mom's at home, and in comes a phone call, and the person on the 
phone call says: Mrs. D, I work for ``so-and-so''--usually a government 
Agency--and I am calling you to alert you that you missed your jury 
duty this month. You were supposed to show up to the courthouse to 
serve on a jury, and you didn't show up.
  Of course, your mom knows nothing about that, and says: I didn't see 
that I was supposed to be there.
  Yes. The legal notice was sent to you, and now a fine is going to be 
imposed on you for your failure to show up for jury duty.
  Oh, my. How much?
  Five thousand dollars. You can pay that fine, and you don't have to 
go to trial.
  Well, how am I going to pay that fine?
  You are going to go to the local grocery store--at the exit--to an 
ATM, a crypto ATM machine.
  How many of those do we have in the United States? We have 30,000 
crypto ATM machines. You may not have noticed them in the store, but as 
you are checking out many times, there they sit. And what is your mom 
supposed to do when she goes to this grocery store, to the crypto ATM 
machine? She is supposed to deposit $5,000--and sometimes much, much 
more--into this machine so that she is buying a stablecoin, but she 
doesn't get the stablecoin. She directs it to the wallet of the 
scammer. So she is out $5,000 or more, thinking that she is paying a 
fine to avoid a trial and because she didn't show up for jury duty she 
didn't know anything about.
  Does that sound preposterous? It is not. It happens over and over and 
over again. These crypto ATM machines are the vehicles that are used 
for defrauding people--primarily, senior citizens--to put in thousands 
and thousands of dollars, and you never get any pennies back because it 
is all phony; it is all a scam. More than a third of all filed 
complaints involving crypto fraud were filed by Americans over the age 
of 50. Many of these scams were facilitated using these crypto ATM 
machines.
  You may be wondering what a crypto ATM is. You pass by them at the 
store, your place of business, and you may not have noticed them, but 
they are there. They are located at a local grocery store or a gas 
station and look like a normal ATM machine except they allow customers 
to deposit cash to purchase cryptocurrency, including stablecoins. They 
can ruin someone's life in an instant. Many times you don't hear about 
it because your mother, having been scammed over the phone and 
deposited thousands of dollars of her life savings, is too embarrassed 
to tell you.
  In fact, seven of the largest crypto ATM operators sell these 
stablecoins. These crypto ATMs become a favorite tool of scammers 
because, once a victim purchases crypto and transfers it to the 
criminal's digital wallet, it can be virtually impossible to trace or 
to retrieve. These scammers follow the same playbook. They call up an 
unassuming victim, pretending to be from the victim's bank, tech 
support, or some government Agency. They impersonate government 
officials.
  Just fair warning--and I say this because we receive a lot of calls 
in the office about scammers on the phone--major Agencies of the 
Federal Government are never going to call you on the phone--the IRS, 
Social Security, and such. They send written notices, and they should. 
So, if it is a fast-talking person on the telephone who says they are 
from a Federal Agency, be careful.
  They may tell the victim they owe money for skipping jury duty or 
need to pay bail to get their child or grandchild out of jail. It 
happened in my family--exactly that scenario. Or they may tell the 
victim there is fraudulent activity on their bank account or computer. 
It happened to me one night. My cell phone starts ringing. I answer it, 
and this fellow says he is from my credit union. He wanted to question 
a transaction, and I am thinking: I have never had my credit union call 
me ever. What is that all about? Well, after a while, I was dubious, 
and he hung up on me. The victim, however, often doesn't realize 
fraudulent activity is even occurring. Meanwhile, they

[[Page S3193]]

scramble to figure out what to do, and the scammer tells them: You can 
just pay the fine at the crypto machine, and here is where to go to use 
that service.
  Through it all, the scammer runs them through everything they need to 
know to take their life savings, thousands and thousands of dollars, 
and to insert it as cash into this machine--this crypto ATM machine--
sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. They purchase 
cryptocurrency and send it off to the scammers' digital wallet, never 
to be seen again.
  Once that happens, the money is gone. There is no way to get it back, 
and there is little hope in tracing the transaction to the actual 
scammer.
  These types of scams led to nearly $247 million in losses last year, 
a 31-percent increase over the previous year, and the crypto ATM 
companies know their kiosks facilitate this fraud.
  I am not a big fan of vaping, but I do want to say this. There is a 
vaping store in my hometown of Springfield, IL, that finally despaired 
of all of the older people who came in in tears, shoveling money into 
the crypto ATM machine. The owner of the premises was given $300 a 
month for allowing crypto ATM machines in his business, but he couldn't 
take it anymore. Too many people were clearly being scammed, and he was 
party to it. And he had it removed.
  A large crypto ATM operator, Bitcoin Depot, wrote in its filing with 
the Securities and Exchange Commission exactly what I have said. They 
said:

       Our products and services may be exploited to facilitate 
     illegal activity, such as fraud, money laundering, gambling, 
     tax evasion, and scams.

  That is as close to a confession as you can get.
  The SEC filing, though revealing, doesn't give the whole picture. It 
doesn't tell the actual human story.
  Imagine a person who is retired, up in years, worried day to day 
whether their Social Security check is going to stretch far enough, and 
now loses thousands of dollars in their life savings to the scam.
  In Illinois, an elderly woman with MS lost $40,000, her entire life 
savings, to a government grant imposter scheme facilitated by a crypto 
ATM. Since the woman can't get around very well--listen to this--the 
scammer called an Uber to pick her up and drive her to the local crypto 
ATM--how kind to drive your victim straight to the crime. They took her 
personal information as well. She is devastated, since this is all the 
money she has been able to save in her entire life, and there is no way 
to recover it from the crypto ATM.
  Elaine, a 76-year-old woman from Florida, was a victim of crypto ATM 
scam after her late husband's death. She looked up the Apple support 
number to try to secure his Apple accounts, but, unfortunately, the 
number she called was an imposter. The criminal convinced her that she 
was the victim of identity theft and told her to immediately take 
$30,000 out of her bank account and deposit it into a crypto ATM. Now 
she is recovering not only from her financial loss but also from the 
loss of her husband.
  Many States, including Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota, have 
decided to make a move, since Congress has not. They have passed State 
legislation to try and crack down on those crypto ATM scams. Just a few 
days ago, I am happy to report, my home State of Illinois passed a 
similar State law.
  Now, it is time for Congress, because 13 States have acted, to learn 
something from their example. We must act so that all Americans know 
the risk of crypto ATMs and have proper documentation when seeking help 
from law enforcement to try to get their hard-earned cash back.
  That is why I am pushing for a vote on my amendment to the GENIUS 
Act, which would create commonsense guardrails to prevent crypto ATM 
fraud and empower law enforcement to combat these scams. My amendment 
would require crypto ATM operators to register with the Federal 
financial regulators, provide warnings to customers about scams, and 
create daily transaction limits so customers cannot lose their entire 
life savings in an instant.
  With my amendment, crypto ATM operators would not be able to simply 
turn a blind eye to the fraud that is happening at their crypto ATM 
machines. We must put an end to these scams.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support my 
amendment to stop scammers in their tracks and provide protections for 
people whom they represent.
  I want to say a word to the industry. You have 13 States now that are 
trying to do what we should do on a national basis. Let's establish 
this national Federal standard that applies in every State in the 
Nation to protect people from this exploitation that is clearly growing 
in intensity by the day. Let's protect senior citizens and many others 
who have been scammed using crypto ATM machines.
  Cryptocurrency has its detractors, and it has its champions, but I 
hope we can all stand together on a bipartisan basis to say that we are 
not going to help scammers steal money from unsuspecting people.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.