H.B. 72 Criminal Use of Cryptocurrency Amendments: transcript

Thank you. We good? Yeah, I just, I just got my learner's permit, so go ahead whenever you're Ready. Alright. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to see you up there again. Um, it's been a few years, so, uh, glad to have you back. Um, this one is interesting, uh, to, I, I think we've, I've shared with this committee before, and, and we've talked about it through the interim. We've had presentations on, uh, the issue that we found really starting last year, um, with the, uh, trafficking of young women from Asia that we found in our illicit massage parlors along with those cases. Um, a disturbing part of those cases is we found crypto ATMs that they were primarily funneling the money through in many of them. Um, what that means that, you know, correlation is not necessarily causation, but as we have the conversation with our attorney general's office and, uh, frankly, division of finance and others, we found, uh, some pretty disturbing, uh, numbers there. And I've, I'm looking right now at, um, a report from Iowa to give you an example to share with you how this is not localized to Utah. We are not unique necessarily. Uh, Representative Gwynn, you're, you're welcome to stay out there. I mean, that was fun. That was fun. Okay. Keep that seat warm. It's all good. Coming back. I'm coming back. Oh, no. Mark can still run it, but yeah, you're good. Okay. All right. Um, anyway, this is from the, the IO ags office back, back on track a little bit. Um, there's some pretty heavy, heavy evidence there, um, upwards of, of 90 plus percent of, uh, that the investigation has discovered that, um, money that had been sent through these crypto ATMs was fraudulent. Now, I don't know, I haven't read the study. I'm just telling you, we've seen this across the board. I've got several cases outside of the prostitution rings that we talked about. Um, many of the victims of which don't want to come and testify in person 'cause they're embarrassed. Um, you'll hear testimony today, uh, from some of the public who, you know, obviously represent, uh, elderly folks in our communities. You're talking major money, like 1.3 million, 800,000, just huge amounts of money that have been scammed out of, uh, otherwise unsuspecting people. And so, while we want to facilitate the use, the responsible use of, of whatever technology and, uh, forms of, of, of money, of, of any of that, we also have to recognize when we know that we are facilitating distribution of fentanyl, of cartel direct activity, when we find them literally in the facilities who are trafficking young girls and drugs, we can't pretend like we didn't see that there have to be reasonable, reasonable regulations. There have to be, uh, reasonable enforcement there to make sure that we're not, uh, we're not sleeping at the wheel and allowing these atrocities to be taking place here. So I, I have Senator Brammer here. He and I didn't know that we were both working on all of this. So he's approaching it because of totally different cases, completely different, uh, organic activities that, that were happening in his, uh, jurisdiction under his stewardship. And, and so I, I, that's why I asked him if he would like to be here. Um, we've combined the bills, um, we feel like we've, you'll see a substitute and then another couple amendments I'm making today. Right. We've been working this thing, trying to negotiate and trying to, to be as reasonable as we can here, but we can't leave it wide open like we have. And Senator Brammer, if you'd like to add anything.

Yeah. So I'm here as part of a, a program called the Emotional Support Senator for certain representatives. Um, Excuse No. Um, no. This is, this is something that, uh, you know, what's been happening, especially where I'm coming from, is a little different than where Representative Wilcox came from. He, he's coming from this idea that, that there were these human trafficking rings and they were using the crypto ATMs. Mine is on the financial fraud side where, um, you know, an elderly person, particularly in the elderly community, what's happening is they get a scam call. They get a scam, emails that trick them into taking out their life savings and uploading that money into a crypto ATM. And what we're trying to do with the policy is slow that process down. We want to have as many contacts between that elderly person and a family member or a bank teller as possible so that there are more and more touch points and time for them to come out of that fraud dream that they're in, where they think that somebody's following them. They think that a loved one is being held hostage. They think that something horrible is about to happen. And if they talk to anyone, then that horrible thing will happen. And they take their money and they load it into a crypto ATM and they lose it. And, and so we're trying to slow down that process by putting kind of a, a staged, you can only deposit this much the first time this much, the second it builds over time. But with each of those delays, you give them a much better chance of coming out of the fog that they are being tricked. Um, you know, and, and there may be other ways to do it, but this is one of the ways it's been effective in other states. And so we're trying to, we're trying to just buy time for people to realize that they're the subject of a fraud. And so that's kind of the direction I'm coming from. And we wanted to work together, rather than have two bills with coordinating clauses. We just figured that this would be a whole lot better to do. And it's gonna, I, I think it's gonna come out a really good policy. So thank you.

The combined bill includes law enforcement training, um, you know, licensing, registration, consumer protections with transaction limits, uh, 2000 for new customers first three days, hence the slowing down 5,000 for established customers. Um, you know, kiosks must, you know, and include receipts and appropriate warnings about that transaction transparency, um, and investigation reporting. So we're, we're talking, um, there needs, it has to be a central place right now. Uh, we've been talking to the Department of Commerce on that, um, rather than finance and trying to make it as simple as possible, but you'll see that, uh, reflected in both the substitute and in the amendments.

Thank you. And I came in late, so maybe I missed it, but are you just talking about ATMs? You're not talking about going into like a bank teller and No, like, going through that whole process. 'cause that's pretty rigorous already. Okay. This Is the crypto ATMs that we're really targeting. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Just a couple questions. If I may. Who would be the, who would receive the training? The as designated officers? What was that? Who would be the designated officers that would get training into this type of Investigation? That's, that's up to each agency. I mean, ideally, this is very difficult. It's very specialized area how to do any of this. Um, just because we declare it that it'll happen, doesn't mean it'll happen immediately. Um, but there's also hotspots around the state, those that have had, um, a higher than average number. And I can tell you some of the counties, if you want to know, 'cause you guys are sitting in those seats. Um, but, uh, yeah, they're gonna be more interested and they're gonna go first. Thank you. If I may ask one additional question, uh, looking at like line 13, it requires licensing and registration for virtual currency kiosk operators, who would be providing that licensing and registration piece? Commerce, Department of Commerce. Okay. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. My name is Stuart Young. I'm the Criminal Deputy Attorney General at the office of the Utah Attorney General's Office. Uh, we are very grateful for this bill, uh, both Representative Wilcox and Senator Brammer with their competing bills. We're very happy to see, uh, some legislation in this space. Um, before I became, uh, before I joined the Utah Attorney General's office as a federal prosecutor, I probably did more crypto currency fraud cases than anybody else, at least in the state and probably in the Rocky Mountain region. Uh, the crypto ATMs are, have been a incredibly big problem for fraud. Uh, and we especially appreciate both the caps as well as the warning labels. Uh, we think these things will be very helpful, especially for our, um, our older population who are much more, uh, susceptible to being scammed, uh, with these types of frauds. Uh, and so we are very appreciative of, uh, this effort by both Representative Wilcox and Senator Brammer. Thank you. I'll sign him later.

Thank you Mr. Uh, vice chair members of the committee. My name is Glenn Minson. I'm the Chief Investigator for the Division of Consumer Protection in the Department of Commerce. I'm actually up here today to tell you about a personal experience I've had with this, despite being the chief of consumer protection and hearing stories about these types of problems with elderly in general. Um, my own father, three years ago, um, recently widowed thought he could handle everything himself, as people tend to do, and they're kind of on their own at that point. And he was checking email, got into kind of a situation with a, uh, the scam. The, the kind of the, the typical, this was like the sextortion scam. Hey, there's a takeover of your computer and we need to get all of your money into a safe account. And he told him which financial institution he had. They proceeded to then have him within one day go to multiple branches of his credit union, withdraw $9,000 at a time because of the limit for the $10,000 reporting. And he proceeded to go from smoke shop to smoke shop to gas station at the behest of the scammers, and depositing this money into crypto kiosks. Now, my father barely can use the computer. He only knows crypto in as much as that he sees commercials and knows the word. But they stayed on the phone with him in his Bluetooth hearing aid, or his, uh, yeah, his hearing aids. And they stayed with him the whole time and went and stayed with him for an entire day. Um, because of what happened. Uh, he was ashamed even to reach out to his son. And by the time he finally confessed and realized all his money was gone, and he had deposited about $50,000 into these, uh, kiosks and all these different shops, by the time he realized it, a week later, uh, he finally reached out to me. And you can imagine my surprise that the guy that I've been trying to educate his entire senior life didn't, didn't bother to call me because he was embarrassed. Right? The, the urgency with which the scammers do this is, is really fast. And the harm is really fast because people, as they age, they don't want to feel like they're losing control of their life. They wanna feel like they can still handle things. And in this particular instance, even my own father, whose son is the chief investigator, fell for these scams. And by the time I found out about it, I reached out to other law enforcement colleagues. There was nothing that could be done. He didn't know about crypto, and he lost everything that he had. So I just wanted to share that personal experience of, uh, this isn't a hypothetical. This is happening every single day, and including to people who know about this kind of stuff, it's happening to our, our loved ones as well. Thank you.

I guess I do have one question. Yeah. How much of this is prosecutable here as opposed to foreign actors being overseas? How much of it is Prosecutable here? Maybe that's a question for Stu. Yeah. So how many of these, when, when we're talking about these cases, I would think that a lot of it's foreign. How many of these cases are foreign versus prosecutable locally?

So it, it, it really depends on the scam. Um, some of the scams are definitely local. Some of them are national and some of them are international. Yeah. And I would say, um, at least 60 to 70% are international. So there, there is that. However, even with the international scams, you do have, uh, essentially kind of like what we'll call money launderers, who are sometimes getting the stuff into, you know, it comes from u it goes from Utah to New York, and then it goes over to Nigeria. And so we still are able to at least in certain, uh, types of scams able to target parts of the group, even if we can't get everybody. And then we try to get Interpol red notices for the rest of 'em and, you know, and hopefully try to extradite, um, if we can. Uh, a number of the scams are local. I mean, my wife got called probably six months ago, uh, because she had, quote unquote missed jury duty in Davis County. And the Davis County Sheriff was calling to say that she needed to, you know, pay a thousand dollars at a crypto ATM or, you know, there'd be a warrant for her arrest. And she gave me the number and I called the dude and, you know, and, and had words with him. And he immediately hung up on me when I asked him his badge number. So anyway, so we do, you know, and, and, and that one was, that one was definitely local. And so we're, you know, and so we try to start an investigation there. And so, so some of 'em are definitely local. Uh, some of them are national and some of them are international.

So does that help answer The question? No, that, yes, that does help. I want one to call me now. That sounds like fun. All right.

Just saying. Hi, I'm Joe hii with A A RP. Uh, first wanna thank, uh, Representative Wilcox for bringing this forward as well as Senator Brammer. Um, we are actually the third kind of group that was informed about this in a different way. Uh, A A RP has a fraud watch network. It's a, a phone line that you can call in if you are suspecting to be, uh, a victim of scams. And, uh, we had a member Enola Johnson call in. And, um, she's actually had an article done on KSL as well as our website if you wanna check it out. It goes into the, um, details of her story she was intending on being here today, but wasn't able to make it. So I'm gonna share her story a little bit. But effectively, Enola lost $850,000. It wasn't all through these machines, but that's how it started. I like to almost say it's the gateway drug. It's how they first get their teeth into you, and then that's when they start extracting more and more and more. And so we really appreciate the efforts that are being done here because, uh, according to the FBI 333 and a half million dollars we're stolen last year. And that's nationwide. The crazy thing about that is it doesn't include December. So that's January to November. And as all we, we all know, the holidays tend to be a little bit more, uh, money spending and, uh, a little bit more loneliness. 'cause it's when we typically get together. And often these scams are, um, a product of a romance scam. And so, as you all know, we get lonely and we, we wanna reach out to people online. And that's how sometimes these people are being scammed. So we really appreciate this, uh, especially the money, um, excuse me, the money transmitter aspect. Uh, know your customer is really important. If you were to go onto one of these exchanges online, you'd actually have to put in your, your ID and, and other defining information. If you were to use these machines, uh, for a small dollar amount, you just need a phone number. And so for know your customer, you know, anti-money laundering, a phone number is a lot different than an id. Uh, so we appreciate the way this is going. And, uh, thank you.

Oh, thank you Chair Committee. Uh, my name is Nate Mutter. I'm the Chief of investigations at the Attorney General's office, as well as the chair of the Law Enforcement Legislative Committee. Uh, we certainly, uh, appreciate, um, Representative Wilcox and Senator Brammer for bringing this forward and, and paying attention to this issue. Uh, just some quick numbers I was able to get from our in-house expert investigator on, on crypto. Uh, so far last calendar year, we helped out, uh, statewide agencies, roughly 135 cases. Um, and about 40% of those dealt with, um, crypto ATMs. Um, and then also to elaborate on, on, uh, your question, Representative Gwynn about 30%. So it's roughly what Stu said are local, uh, suspects that we're, uh, helping to identify. So, uh, this is something that is an active, um, issue, and we're certainly glad that, that, uh, this bill is looking to address that, and we urge the support of this bill. Thank You. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Um, my name is Jackson. Last, I represent the Utah Bankers Association. Uh, we just want to thank Representative Wilcox and Senator Brammer for their, uh, work on this bill. Um, as you've heard, these kiosks are a hotspot for fraud, and banks are pretty actively involved in trying to fight fraud. So, uh, we're in support of this bill and, uh, we'd really appreciate if you guys support it as well. Um, and yeah, it's, it's gonna make a big difference, so thank you.

Yes. Motion to adopt. Second substitute of HB 72, criminal use of cryptocurrency amendments. Yeah.

Yes. I may make a motion to pass out favorably. Second substitute HB 72, criminal use of cryptocurrency amendments Amendment one amendment, oh, sorry. We gotta do the amendment As well as the substitute. Okay. Motion. Wait, we're amening substitute. Yeah, we're Amendment. We're amending. Substitute two. Okay. Motion to adopt the amendment. I don't see an amendment. It's public. Okay. Oh, there we go. Motion to adopt house amendment one. Is That right? Sub second. Substitute. That motion is in order? Yeah. Okay.

Uh, make a motion to pass out favorably. Second substitute as amended. Uh, HB 72, criminal use of cryptocurrency amendments. Okay, that motion is in order. Would you like to speak to that motion? I would. I was actually one of those people that got a phone call. You have failed to come to jury duty. You have to pay your fines right now. And then asking three questions. I burst out laughing and said, you are such a scam. This is so bs. And they, how do you know that? I'm like, you are. There's no way that you are real. And they, you know, click. I got two more phone calls within the next three months asking the exact same thing. So this is a really big deal. I have a, a, a, a constituent who had a relative on parole who got a call saying, they have not paid their fines. They will be arrested unless you put money in right now. And they did put thousands of dollars in because they didn't want that individual to go back to prison unnecessarily. So this is really important. I, I, I would guess that almost everybody's had some kind of phone call email one way or another. And it's time to crack down. And especially when we can prosecute, it's time for us to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Pro Tem. Not sure if that's a thing, but you're doing a good job. Um, in all seriousness, this is, uh, I haven't found a jurisdiction yet that didn't have at least one case, um, yet, by the way, the Davis County thing is a legitimate thing. That case he cited a minute ago with eight, 150,000 also outta Davis County, okay? One outta Morgan County, 1.2 million, lost the home, lost everything. It was complicated. It was targeted, like met someone in real life, and then this stuff started. Um, so you have all sorts of different elements here. The one connecting thread between these criminal cases and the overt fraud is this issue. And we've made amendments. We've worked with, uh, you know, Veritas. We've worked with all, all sorts of folks that wanna make sure we're, we're, you know, supporting, uh, you know, your right and your choice to, to use what you want to use. And it cannot be left open. So we're openly facilitating the cartel and those who would take advantage of not just our parents, but but our friends who aren't here to testify in person because they're mortified. They're, they're embarrassed that they fell for it. You guys, I'm here in reality in this seat today because my predecessor, who was here, his wife was scammed outta their life savings. That was through a regular financial institution with more controls that weren't followed properly at a regular institution. We're asking for like a modicum of time and moment, right? So that, that people can realize if we can just get through, like those first three days often, then they realize what's going on. And somebody else, hopefully, in their life can help 'em raise the red flag, uh, before, before it's too late. So, we're, uh, we appreciate your support. I'm, I know I'm not worried about the votes in this committee, but I'm hoping to turn everybody into evangelists and help those, encourage those people in your community to have those conversations that are willing to come forward and have those a little bit more openly and, and frankly, um, prevent this from happening from word of mouth as well. Thank you. Uh, I appreciate the reminder to be looking out for our loved ones. There's nothing I hated more than going on a call with a senior. Yeah. And, you know, we see it a mile away and they, they don't, they can't, they care. So, all right.

Thank you. I, this I literally ran here.

I should probably run more in the morning with Senator Musselman and then I wouldn't be in this position. So here we are. Um, this one, Hmm. This one comes out of a bill that we ran, uh, last year. And in some investigations that were done on the law enforcement side, wherein we, we discovered that there were a number of, uh, a number of, uh, illicit massage parlors that were trafficking in young women, primarily, primarily from Asia, um, where the finances were all running through, uh, crypto ATMs. Now, at the time, we dealt with some of the massage parlor issues. Uh, Senator Musselman and I ran, ran those together. Uh, but we weren't, we weren't aware of, well, I guess we didn't, we didn't figure out what to do with the crypto machines and that part of it until we took an extra year to, to work on through the interim. And that's where this comes from. So, working with the attorney General's office and law enforcement, we, um, began to approach this as we were approaching that from the law enforcement angle. Um, Senator Brammer we found was also drafting legislation because of fraud that primarily affected seniors. And we're gonna have some of those folks here today as well. If there's any staff that would like to bring me some water, that'd be awesome. Thank you. But, uh, we're doing a few things with, with the cryptocurrency bill. Um, one of those is we're attempting to provide, um, relevant data and, uh, tools to investigators. Thank you. Appreciate that. Uh, we're providing, uh, fraud warnings in English and Spanish on the kiosks. And one of the things that we found that was the most important with this is to slow it down, particularly when it comes to our seniors, where, um, if they have a limit at the beginning, uh, they aren't able to put too, too much in all at once. We have, uh, a number of cases where the fraudsters will walk them, they'll stay in their ear, in their earpiece and walk them through what they think is an investment or what they think is helping a friend or a family member in the past. And some of these cases are extremely bad. You're talking over a million dollars in some, uh, we're talking, uh, they're being taken advantage of simply because they didn't figure it out for a while. And so we have earlier lower limits. Uh, we started out $1,000 on the limits. We've now compromised with the industry to $2,000 a day for the first three days, and then $5,000 a day after that. Most of those cases, uh, they would've lost much less if that were the case before they realized that it was fraud or before a loved one or a family member was able to intervene. Um, in the case, um, my predecessor, if y'all remember my predecessor here this time around where his spouse was, was scammed out of, out of their life savings, which is what led to, led to me running this time around. They, um, that happened at a, at a regular financial institution at one of our credit unions. And, you know, there were some things that were missed there. And so we changed some laws. That's really what this is. There are some things that have been missed. We have several cases around the state, not to mention, uh, what these machines have turned into for organized crime and, and trafficking. Um, we grant the division of Consumer Protection Enforcement Authority, um, and we require them to provide, um, legitimate, you know, operators to provide, you know, basic things like customer service line. But I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any. I know if you know, there's some other folks that are here to talk to, speak to us. Um, but we have run this through our partners with both the A G's office of course, who helped us to draft it, the FBI, um, and, uh, the fraud watch network at a RP.

Hello, I'm Joe Hirabayashi. I'm the Associate State Director of Advocacy for A A RP Utah. Uh, we wanna thank Representative Wilcox and Senator Brammer for bringing this bill forward. Uh, in a moment here, you'll hear from one of our members who had lost a considerable amount of money, uh, to some of these schemes. And, uh, we appreciate the effort to be, um, transparent here and get ahead of this because, uh, it's happening across the country and in particular in Utah. Recently, the, uh, FBI came out with a report that 333 and a half million dollars were stolen just last year utilizing these schemes. Uh, and that was just from January through November. So that avoids December, which is of course one of the more, uh, spending months. Um, so we really appreciate the efforts here and we, uh, ask for your support. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, Stuart Young. I'm the Criminal Deputy Attorney General at the office of the Utah Attorney General. Uh, we really appreciate, uh, the efforts of both Representative Wilcox as well as Senator Brammer as they put this bill together. Uh, the state of Utah has a dire need for this bill cre. Crypto ATMs are one of the main conduits for moving ill-gotten gains, whether due to fraud, narco traffickers, massage par parlors, or other financial scams. Um, I was one of the principal architects on prosecuting the top worldwide leadership of MS 13. And during our investigation, we found that they were moving their extortion money through crypto ATMs down to El Salvador. We also see jury duty scams, where fake law enforcement agencies tell people to send money via the crypto ATMs to ensure they don't get arrested for missing jury duty. And even more recently, I just heard about last week, we have a new scam where scammers contact family members of persons currently in jail in Utah, or with outstanding warrants and telling them to send money via crypto ATMs to quash their warrant or post bail. So these scams in this money laundering through these crypto ATMs has gotten out of control. This bill is a terrific step in regulating the crypto ATMs and to warn consumers of the dangers about the likely scams that they're being undertaking. Uh, the warnings are vitally needed, and we hope that we have that. We hope that people will be able to think twice before they're inputting cash during a scam. And also, we really appreciate the regulatory daily limits on those crypto ATMs. Uh, so in some, we really think this is a, a vital bill, and we really appreciate, uh, the efforts of, uh, the, uh, Representative Wilcox Wilcox and Senator Brammer. Thank you. Thank You.

Uh, my name is Jackson. Last, I represent the Utah Bankers Association. We wanna speak in favor of the bill and thank Representative Wilcox and Senator Brammer for their work. Um, this is just a really popular place for fraud to happen. People are taking their money out of banks a lot of times where there's, you know, safeguards and stuff in place, and then taking them to these where there's not the same safeguards. So we're in favor of it and ask that you, uh, give it a favorable recommendation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Uh, my name is Glenn Minson. I'm the Chief investigator of the Utah Division of Consumer Protection. I'm actually here today to speak to you about a personal situation that happened with me. Um, several years back. About four years ago, my mother passed away and my 77-year-old father at the time was certain he could handle all of his own business and his finances. He fell for a well-known computer takeover scam, which led him to believe that he was talking to his financial institution who was actually scammers. They then advised him to go to his credit union, and in fact, Uintah four different branches of his credit union in the same day. He has Bluetooth hearing aids. The scammers were on the phone with him the entire time coaching him after he withdrew certain amounts of money. He was then advised to go to various crypto ATMs, both in smoke shops and in gas stations. And this is, my father's never been in a smoke shop in his life. Probably wouldn't even know what that is if you asked him. So here he is going location to location, getting money structured out of the bank so that they don't know really what's going on. And going into depositing in this. Now as a senior citizen, he watches tv. He hears the word crypto. It sounds super secure and safe, right? But he doesn't know, he's not tech savvy. And the reality is he thought he was protecting his money. But $40,000 later, which is was his entire liquid savings, was deposited into these crypto ATMs. And by the time he realized he had been scammed and, uh, came and talked to his son, who's the chief investigator, over a week had passed because of the embarrassment. Um, and by that time, despite the contacts that I have in the enforcement community, there was nothing really that could be done. We saw where the money went, nothing we could do about it. Um, so this isn't really a hypothetical situation. It happens every single day. And then it even happens to the elderly that are coached by his son not to fall for this kind of stuff. But there were, there were no barriers in place to stop him, nothing to create a, a, a, a time for him to say, Hey, maybe this is a problem. Maybe I should talk to someone else. And that's kind of the risk that these machines currently offer. Um, I, I think people that know what crypto is and, and are engaged in it, probably know how to also get that on a computer. But, uh, this is definitely being used to target the elderly. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is she, detective Cheryl Linzer with Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office. I, I'm in favor of this bill, and everybody in the sheriff's office is in favor of this bill. Um, just this past month, I have, um, been assigned a case where a woman was contacted because her family member was in the jail. Um, she was instructed to pay some certain amount of money through a third party vendor. And then after that, she was told she had a warrant for her arrest because she missed jury duty. The next day she withdrew $52,000 and deposited, sorry, deposited those funds within a crypto ATM. After those crypto ATMs take off, 25% in fees, $39,000 was divided into four different wallet addresses and gone, it's gone. This past year, we have investigated 150 different digital cases where victims were scammed out of money. Lots and lots and lots of money, and it's very difficult to recover anything for these victims. So please do our victims a favor and pass this. Thank you.

My name is an Johnson. I'm the elderly, uh, that, that got scammed. So, uh, in 2023, I met someone online on LinkedIn. I've never been on a web, uh, a dating website or anything like that. I thought LinkedIn was safe and legit. And come to find out, um, it's not. So anyway, it went from, uh, as time goes on, they're manipulating you. They're grooming you to trust them. Once they gain your trust, that's when the money starts to flow. So I was, uh, scammed many different ways, but one of the ways was crypto ATMs. And I could never figure out, I, I would send, like for instance, in, uh, I sent $4,000 once through one of them. And by the time the scammer got it, a lot of it was gone. And I said, why aren't you getting the full amount? And he said, well, you know, Bitcoin fluctuates a lot. So I thought that that was the answer. But once I got out of the scams, once I started looking into these Bitcoin machines and who operates them and what they do, um, I realized that they're taking 30 to 35% off the top. So, so whatever the, the price of crypto is that day, they increase it to sell to me by 30 to 35%. And that's where that extra money is going. So I'm not only getting scammed once, I'm getting scammed twice, once by my manipulator, once by the machine owner. So I think it is really important. And what I've done since then is I started a podcast to kind of take people through my experience and try to get them to, um, listen to it and, and take note about what they can do to stay safe. So I'm really hoping that you will pass this bill and that we can regulate it further from here. Actually, that's, that's all. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh, yes, thank you. Chair committee. Nate Mutter, chair of the Law Enforcement Legislative Committee. Also the Chief of Investigations for the Attorney General's office. Uh, we definitely urge the, the committee support of this bill. Uh, as an investigation division, we've helped, uh, agencies statewide in well over a hundred cases, uh, uh, involving cryptocurrency and about 40% of those cases, uh, directly involved Crypto ATMs is the, the main tool used to perpetuate the, the fraud or the scam. Uh, and so, uh, this bill we're, we're definitely grateful for Representative Wilcox and, and Senator Brammer take a look at this issue and, and, uh, take these initial steps to, to help, uh, protect our, our citizens in the state of Utah. And, uh, again, we, we urge the committee support. Um, thank you.

Got it. There we go. Maryanne Christensen, executive Director of Utah Legislative Watch. And I also have a family member who was a victim of some of these crimes. Um, it was a, a call that said she'd gotten her subpoena for, to appear and she didn't appear. So there was a warrant out for her arrest and she needed to pay a fine. And, um, when she questioned the, uh, putting money in a machine at a smoke shop, she was said, oh, we started doing it this way over during COVID when people couldn't come in person. When they asked for more money, she realized that it was a scam. And so at that point, she got off the phone with them, got on the phone with, uh, law enforcement. And even though she was reporting it right away, she was told at the time that there was nothing they could do. The money was gone. Sure. And so, uh, I have no idea what the amount was, but, um, young family member devastated by the fact that she'd been abused that way. And so, um, I just really, this is an impossible situation. They are stealing people's money with impunity because we give them away to just funnel it away. And, um, so thank you for voting. Yes.

Uh, Representative Wilcox, I have one. Um, and we'll before we take some action, as I was looking, you know, you're talking, um, in lines 5 35 and they're like five 50. You're talking about the local law enforcement agencies. So unsure that a at least one police officer employed by the agency completes a training. It doesn't seem like that does, it seems that's really pervasive. So I'm assuming that every police department, every sheriff's office in the state of Utah would be required to do that. And no matter the size,

Uh, I'm sorry, what line are you on? Just wanna make sure. Uh, it's just 5 35 through five 50. Okay.

Just where it talks about, you know, the training of police officers or Law law enforcement officers.

I mean, that's permissive. Like we're not, um, you know, nobody's gonna be arresting them for not sending their guy No, I get that. We're also Yeah. But this is something that they're asking for. This is not something that we're gonna have to talk him into. This is hidden everywhere. Okay. Yeah, that's, that's why they've act asked for that.

Okay. Just wanted to make sure because Yeah, I was kinda looking out for the small guys, you know, the rural, I appreciate that. Those small rural you agencies.

So Senator Ipson, I make a motion that we favorably recommend House Bill 72 second substitute with the favorable recommendation.

Representative Wilcox for summation. Thank you. I appreciate your time. And, um, allowing me to catch my breath here. Uh, this is one of the more important ones that we could do, but not because, um, it's gonna stop it. What I hope happens with this is that, that we get the training done. Um, we're able to, to communicate that a little bit better. And then when it happens, we're able to, to solve more of these cases. Time is of the essence in these, those warnings that we're requiring on here. Um, hopefully they will, they'll have that effect and we can start to get a handle on it. But we're not finding cashes of money anymore in interdiction on I 15 and I 80. It's almost all crypto now. Like the cartels have a hundred percent moved that direction. Um, we are, we're in a different space and we need to handle it a little bit differently. Thank you.

Thanks, Senator Ipson. I'm just hope that this will help. It's a stretch and I, everything we can do, I, it helps.

Meeting clerk Second substitute house bill 72 criminal use of cryptocurrency amendments by Representative Wilcox. This bill was heard in judiciary with a vote of 9 1 1

Well, that was kind of fun. It wasn't an emergency, but it was a 9 1 1 vote. Thank you Mr. Uh, speaker Pro tem. The issue that, see, I got a dad joke out on the floor. I had to take the chance. Uh, this issue though isn't actually very funny. Um, we found these, uh, cryptocurrency machines in a number of places in the last few years. Um, this came to me because the organized crime subcommittee took testimony from the AJ's office and federal law enforcement that we had found the cryptocurrency machines in the illicit massage parlors that were trafficking young women, uh, from Asia. And that's where it kind of started with us. We started, oh, I agree.

Thank you. Um, anyway, uh, we found, we found that the traffickers and the cartels were specifically using these particular machines to funnel the, the funds involved in that activity and realize there needed to be some, uh, guardrails put around them. Um, at the same time, uh, our senate sponsor, uh, Senator Brammer down south, um, was dealing with, uh, some elderly folks who had been not just ripped off, but, uh, we had testimony here, uh, in the house of a, of a woman from a woman that, uh, had been scammed out of $850,000 in one of these. Uh, many of the stories from law enforcement included, uh, elderly folks in Utah who had been guided to these specific machines. Um, oftentimes it's under threat. Um, other times it, they're simply, uh, scammed out of their life savings. And so what this bill attempts to do is to put basic, uh, boundaries around them. Um, we are gi are providing cryptocurrency investigation training for designated law enforcement, require agencies to report, uh, cryptocurrency investigation data to CCJJ to make sure that we're keeping track and, and understanding the scope of the problem. Um, we're requiring fraud warnings, um, and we create basic consumer protections for crypto etms that including transaction limits, $2,000 a day for the first three days, for example, and $5,000 a day afterward. Most cases, when our elderly, uh, friends have fallen victim to these particular scams, they, uh, realize that somebody catches that within like three or four days, which is why the limit is lifted after a period of time. We don't want to interfere with legitimate behavior. Also, it's very different than when someone, you know, walks into a bank and, uh, has to show ID. And, you know, and there'll be questions that our banking institutions ask that isn't the case. And in this case, the fraudsters and those who are, are trafficking and illicit, uh, drugs or, um, trafficking humans, they don't have any of those current restrictions. Um, so it requires the, um, division or gives the division of Consumer Protection Enforcement Authority, uh, including fines and civil actions when they find the bad actors. And, uh, we, uh, require that they have a customer service line for those who would genuinely just want to, you know, need the help there. I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any, Mr. Speaker, but that's the, that's the

Thank you. Uh, this is one of those bills where, uh, I opened a bill file and then I looked and Representative Wilcox had already opened a bill file in the same space. So we just combined our, our ideas together and this is what came out of it in some sort of unholy alliance. And so, um, I'm just joking. He's a good friend. Well, that, That happens. That happens. Uh, what what's been happening is occasionally you will see in gas stations or other locations what looks like an ATM machine, but it is a cryptocurrency, ATM machine. And from the house sponsor's view, he had gone and done a bunch of busts of, uh, with law enforcement of massage parlors that were using cryptocurrency to as the money moving device for, uh, for human trafficking that was occurring within these massage parlors. Now, my side of it came from a different angle where people were being deceived through various communications to take out their life savings and then load them into cryptocurrency and send it out. So they would go to a bank, withdraw everything they had in the bank, and then put it into a cryptocurrency machine and send it away. And poof, it was gone forever because of the nature of the transaction. And so what this does is it attempts to place some reasonable boundaries around these cryptocurrency kiosks. Uh, it provides specialized investigative training for law enforcement and reporting requirements for agencies. It provides fraud, warnings and basic consumer protections in the form of transaction limits. And so the idea on those transaction limits is if you can have an elderly person who is subject to fraud, who may be confused about an issue in their life, if they have to go back to their bank multiple days in a row, if they have to talk to their children, there's a good chance that they will come out of the fog of that fraud of the deception that has been placed upon them and hopefully come to, you know, instead of just keep loading money into a, into an ATM, they'll have more contacts with people to try to prevent that fraud. And so these limits will start at $2,000 the first three days and then increase to 5,000. It also gives enforcement authority to the division of Consumer protection and requires them to establish a customer service line for those affected by fraud. Now we don't want to interfere with legitimate behavior, but law enforcement has noticed that these scams are typically caught in two or three days. And that's why we have this time limit. And the attorney General's office, as well as federal law enforcement, brought many of these cases to our attention. And so with that, I'm open to any questions.

Senator Vickers Baldy Lein Aye. Bramer Aye. Bus? Aye. Culmore Escamilla Aye. Fillmore Aye. Grover Aye. Harper Aye. Kins. Aye. Ipson Johnson Quan Aye. McKay Mikel Aye. Milner Musselman Musselman Owens pitcher Plum Rebe Sandal Stevenson Stratton Bickers Weiler Wilson.

Thank you Mr. President Pro. Tim third substitute house Bill 3 81 aims