- Crypto ATM providers aren’t doing enough to prevent and detect money laundering, scams and terrorism, Australian financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC has warned.
- AML/CTF obligations will apply to a broader range of business, including digital currency exchanges, from March 2026, requiring operators to be AUSTRAC registered, maintain AML/CTF programs and undertake suspicious transaction monitoring.
Australia’s large number of crypto ATM providers have more work to do to get the right checks and balances in place to detect money laundering, scams and terrorism, the country’s financial intelligence agency has warned.
Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) CEO Brendan Thomas said his recently established cryptocurrency taskforce has been “busy engaging with businesses” and found a number of Australia’s estimated 1,600 crypto kiosks weren’t compliant with the law.
It’s identified worrying trends and indicators of suspicious activity, including transactions that may be linked to scams or fraud.
Brendan Thomas, AUSTRAC CEOThomas said AUSTRAC would work with crypto ATM providers to “raise standards”, but was ready to take action against operators who don’t comply.
“We want to ensure crypto ATM providers have robust practices to minimise the risk that their machines can be used to launder dirty money or to scam and defraud innocent people,” he said.
New laws will come into effect on March 31, 2026 to bring ‘virtual asset service providers’ under Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) rules to prevent and disrupt financial crime.
Related: New AUSTRAC Task Force To Combat Crypto ATM Use In Money Laundering
Crypto ATMs Booming and Scammers Are Cashing In
AUSTRAC claims Australia has the highest number of crypto ATMs in the Asia-Pacific region — with their numbers skyrocketing from 23 in 2019 to around 1,600 today and more being installed.
The freestanding ATM kiosks let users buy and sell a range of popular tokens using cash or a credit/debit card and transfer the assets to their crypto wallet via scanning a QR code. Not all machines let you sell tokens to withdraw cash.
There’s a risk of ‘dirty money’ being passed through crypto ATMs, with the convenience of being able to convert cash to tokens exploited by scammers.
AUSTRAC shared the story of a man in his 50s who was convinced by his ‘girlfriend’ — a person he’d never met — to withdraw deposits she’d made into his bank account and then use a crypto ATM to buy crypto that was then transferred to a wallet controlled by a third person. The man was unknowingly being used as a ‘money mule’, and over time helped the crims convert nearly $200,000 in illicit funds.
Related: Money Laundering Crackdown: AUSTRAC Puts 50 Firms On Notice
Crypto lawyer Michael Bacina recently highlighted how UK’s financial agency responsible for anti-money laundering, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), had been seeking to outlaw crypto ATMs for some time and had shut down many machines for operating without being registered — with no crypto ATMs having even been successfully registered.
“But with no one seemingly able to obtain a licence to operate bitcoin ATMs in the UK, is this a shadow ban via regulation by enforcement?” Bacina said.
He said AUSTRAC’s crackdown pointed to a similar tough stance on crypto ATMs, but noted that only two digital currency exchange registrations were cancelled or suspended in 2024.
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