Law enforcement officials in Georgia and Florida have exposed a network of cryptocurrency scams that used contraband prison phones, spoofed caller IDs and fake investment platforms to drain victims through Bitcoin ATMs and exchange-linked transfers.
In one case, investigators say Patrick Marquelle Turner, 31, was serving time at Wheeler Correctional Facility in Georgia when he allegedly posed as the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. He pressured an elderly Marion County resident to deposit $5,600 into a crypto ATM to pay a fake fine for missed jury duty. Detectives tracked the funds through eight separate transactions and connected them to Turner, who was extradited to Florida on August 24. He faces charges including grand theft, money laundering, defrauding someone over 65, impersonating an officer, and using a communication device to commit a felony.
Authorities suspect the scheme is part of a broader prison-run impersonation network. The Volusia Sheriff’s Office has charged multiple people it says moved scam proceeds through cryptocurrency. D’Zyre Youngblood, 28, of Atlanta, was linked to a fraud that took more than $79,000 from a Florida woman after a caller claimed to be “Captain Eric Dietrich” and threatened arrest; detectives traced the money to a Coinbase account. Christina Rimes is accused of taking $17,000 from a Daytona Beach resident, and Lakesha Heard was extradited to Volusia County in August 2025 in a case where a victim placed $9,300 into a Bitcoin ATM.
Federal data underscore the scale of the problem. The FBI recorded $333.5 million in Bitcoin ATM fraud in 2025, affecting more than 10,000 victims, with older adults hit hardest. Louisiana authorities recovered $200,000 after passing a law requiring warning signs on kiosks, limiting deposits to $3,000 per day, and imposing a 72-hour hold to give fraud victims time to recover funds.
In a separate Cobb County case, a victim recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars after losing money to a fake crypto platform. Authorities said a stranger contacted the victim on social media, used the names of mutual acquaintances to build trust, and then directed the conversation toward supposedly lucrative crypto trades. The platform allowed a small withdrawal early on, then displayed fake profits to encourage larger deposits. After the victim had deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars, the site claimed the funds were gone. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation traced much of the money to a cryptocurrency exchange, and Attorney General Chris Carr’s White Collar and Cyber Crime Unit, working with its Investigations Section and the nonprofit Operation Shamrock, obtained a court order to return the assets.
“Cryptocurrency scams are designed to exploit trust, urgency, and the promise of easy financial gain,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said. The scheme matches federal advisories describing pig butchering, in which scammers build a relationship over weeks before disappearing with the victim’s money.
The recoveries follow Governor Brian Kemp’s signing of House Bill 945, effective July 1. The law requires virtual currency kiosk operators to post warning signs, limits transaction fees to 18%, and mandates refunds for first-time scam victims within 72 hours. It also allows banks to place temporary holds on accounts suspected of being used to financially exploit older customers. Other recent cases include a retired Cobb County couple who lost about $800,000 to an AI-generated “ghost site,” a $1.7 million return in the Eastern District of Virginia in December, and a Massachusetts effort to seize about $200,000 tied to a romance-investment scam.
