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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) \u2013 Cryptocurrency is a new type of digital money used entirely online, but the FBI estimates 24,000 Americans got caught up in scams involving it just last year alone. The cost? Nearly $1 billion dollars of regular peoples\u2019 hard-earned money.<\/p>\n
KDKA Investigator Meghan Schiller talked to FBI Pittsburgh about how its special agents are prepared to help as more people start to take a gamble with cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: <\/strong>Around The Table: Investments And The Economy<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s popular and just about everywhere around southwestern Pennsylvania. In the South Side at Carson News and Lottery, you can snag a pop and some crypto.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like the Wild, Wild West of crypto,\u201d said Zach Churchill of Carson News and Lottery. \u201cScan your wallet right here, click on whatever crypto you want and it will put it right on your wallet.\u201d<\/p>\n But with easy access to money unregulated by any bank or government comes risk.<\/p>\n \u201cVictims lose anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few million dollars and if you can imagine, these scams and schemes usually involve a large number of individuals so you may have a group of victims spread out across the country,\u201d said Supervisory Special Agent Eric Yingling with FBI Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n He\u2019s FBI Pittsburgh\u2019s \u201ccrypto expert\u201d and he says criminals seeking crypto don\u2019t need to think outside the box.<\/p>\n \u201cOftentimes it\u2019s really traditional scams and schemes we\u2019ve seen for years just perpetrated with a sort of cryptocurrency twist,\u201d he said, from \u201cget rich quick\u201d investment scams, to lottery scams, to the age-old kidnapping and romance scams.<\/p>\n \u201cA victim of a romance fraud may be encouraged to go and send funds from the victim to the subject overseas and the quickest and easiest way to do that may be to travel to their local gas station and put currency and transmit it, and those funds are internationally moved instantly,\u201d said Yingling.<\/p>\n The digital money is gone in a flash and there\u2019s no customer service number or bank to call to complain. The scammers and hackers target both regular people and big businesses.<\/p>\n READ MORE: <\/strong>Pitt Professor Helps Raise More Than $800K For Ukraine Through Kyiv School Of Economics<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBecause as the sort of growth of the industry occurs, it also opens a whole bunch of opportunities for bad actors to exploit peoples\u2019 interest in it, but also to use it for nefarious purposes. So as that technology evolves, the FBI needs to evolve with it, and we are certainly taking steps to do exactly that,\u201d said Yingling, like the recently announced National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and the FBI\u2019s new Digital Currency Unit that will investigate all reports alleged victims submit to IC3.gov.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of us, myself included, would ever want to think of ourselves as victims of one of these scams, but it\u2019s equally important to report that to the FBI as quickly as possible because by reporting that it, it helps us to do our job quicker to hold those accountable and try to return victim funds,\u201d said Yingling.<\/p>\n Mike Smalley from West Mifflin just started using crypto, and he\u2019s already on the defense.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve steered clear of scams; I mean you get the scam emails, but generally the sites they\u2019re really secure, they\u2019re pretty good,\u201d said Smalley.<\/p>\n He\u2019s keeping the FBI\u2019s tips in mind:<\/p>\n \u201cThe huge upside of the crypto like gambling, you can put a dollar in the slot machine and win 500 or 5,000, same with this, whereas in stocks you generally gradually increase over time like your investment 401Ks,\u201d said Smalley.<\/p>\n KDKA Meghan Schiller asked, \u201cSo, you\u2019re looking for the thrill?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, what the heck,\u201d said Smalley.<\/p>\n A thrill that Smalley knows could turn to theft with one wrong click.<\/p>\n MORE NEWS: <\/strong>Allegheny County 911 Dispatchers Union May Stage A Strike<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t put anything in that you intend to lose or can lose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n