Bangladesh, Dec. 18 -- On a cold December day in 2024, Steve Beckett did something millions of Americans do every week: he stopped at a convenience store. There was nothing unusual about the moment. No masked men. No threats. No alarms. Yet by the time Beckett left the Circle K in Indiana, his life savings were gone-extracted not through violence, but through a machine quietly humming inside a brightly lit retail store.

The crime that unfolded did not rely on guns or getaway cars. Instead, it exploited trust, fear, and the illusion of legitimacy created when sophisticated financial technology is placed inside familiar, respected spaces. At the center of Becketts loss was a bitcoin ATM operated by Bitcoin Depot, one of the largest crypto ...