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Vancouver got its first bitcoin AMT in 2013 and now the Mayor wants to ban them since they are an ‘’ideal money-laundering vehicle.’’ More about the decision, we read in our coming altcoin news.

The reports coming from the Vancouver Police department says that there are now more than 76 machines in the city and they have been in the police’s eyes twice in the same year over regulatory issues. Sergeant Alvin Shum even took aim at Bitcoin AMTs but also the entire ideology behind the blockchain technology. He wrote:

 “Given the lack of a central authority, there is no controlling organization who can monitor or regulate the transfer of funds to ensure a legitimate transaction. This creates a prime opportunity for the criminal element to capitalize on remaining anonymous, as they work to defraud unsuspecting citizens, launder money, and make large-sum anonymous transactions.”

Shum says that the lack of regulation will allow for the incubation of petty crimes and organized crimes. He pointed out that there is also a rising trend of crypto police filings in Vancouver each year, increasing up to 350 percent from 2016 to 2017. The current reports indicate that the Metro Police will now get 840 additional reports this year for a 300 percent increase since 2018.

It is still unknown whether all of these crimes were directly tied to using Bitcoin ATMs although Shum said that there is a high-pressure tactic that the fraudsters use to victims making them withdraw large amounts of cash and deposit it in a Bitcoin ATM. Right after Shum wrote his reports, there were about 15 new machines added to the Vancouver Metro Area.

As reported previously in the latest cryptocurrency news, the city council suggested a law regulate the use and operation of crypto ATMs including the requirement for signage, business license, and identifications to be used in order to verify the identity of the sender and receiver.

The first Bitcoin ATM was installed in Vancouver in 2013 in a coffee shop which had a built-in palm scanner in order to prevent users from processing more than $3000 CAD per day. Vancouver now has a lack of standardization for these types of transactions that can be performed on ATMs.