Australia‘s top financial crimes agency has suspended digital asset ATM operator Cryptolink, forcing it to shut down 96 machines across the country, amid ongoing concerns about the firm’s compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) obligations.
Cryptolink is a virtual asset service provider that operates a network of digital currency ATMs (CATMs) across Australia, allowing customers to exchange cash for digital assets. Such machines have been the subject of increasing scrutiny around the globe over the past few years, in particular in Australia.
The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) began investigating Cryptolink in October 2025 after the financial sector watchdog’s digital currency taskforce identified alleged breaches of AML laws, including late reporting of threshold transactions and weaknesses in Cryptolink’s AML/CTF risk assessments.
“As part of our continued focus on digital currency as a money laundering risk, AUSTRAC has ongoing concerns about the company’s ability to manage high-risk transactions through its CATMs,” AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said in an August 10 press release. “While Cryptolink met the conditions stipulated in its enforceable undertaking, it subsequently failed to meet basic reporting obligations, particularly for threshold transaction reports.”
Thomas added that, because the company failed to submit the required reports or respond to AUSTRAC’s request for information, it was deemed “too high risk to continue operating at present.”
In addition to handing Cryptolink a three-month suspension, which took effect on August 9 of this year, the financial crime watchdog issued the firm an AUD$56,340 (US$ 39,796) infringement notice, which it said the company has already paid.
The suspension of Cryptolink’s registration is the latest action in Australia’s ongoing crackdown on crypto ATMs, dating back to the establishment of AUSTRAC’s digital currency taskforce in December 2024.
Australia’s war on CATMs
Australia is among the world’s largest markets for digital asset ATMs, with machines available in malls, gas stations, and other convenient locations. According to Coin ATM Radar, there are 1,752 CATMs in the country, with Sydney alone hosting 553; only Canada and the United States have more, at 3,579 and 19,805, respectively.
The current number of CATMs in Australia represents a substantial increase from the 23 it had in 2019 and the 60 it had in 2022. However, this exponential growth brought the sector to the attention of AUSTRAC, which, in December of last year, launched a crackdown on digital asset ATM providers who didn’t comply with its AML/CTF regime.
“AUSTRAC intelligence shows cryptocurrency poses a heightened money laundering risk, and is increasingly being exploited for money laundering, scams and money mule activities,” said the agency.
Under Australian law, CATM operators should monitor all transactions, report any suspicious activity, complete Know Your Customer (KYC) checks for all users, and submit reports to AUSTRAC for cash transactions exceeding AUD10,000 (US$6,300). They must also have robust practices in place to identify and minimize the risk that their machines will be used to facilitate the movement of money associated with scams, fraud, or other illicit proceeds.
To ensure these minimum standards are met, the digital currency task force was established to investigate and oversee the sector.
“As the use of cryptocurrency increases, so too will criminal exploitation, which is why this taskforce will work to eliminate non-compliant high risk operations,” said AUSTRAC CEO Thomas, at the time. “This is the first step in AUSTRAC’s focus to reduce the criminal use of cryptocurrency in Australia. We will be focusing on this industry over the course of next year.”
And focus on the area they did. A few months after its founding, the task force revealed that many ATM operators had been falling short of their regulatory obligations, resulting in AUSTRAC officially putting digital currency ATM operators on notice for their lack of AML/CFT checks.
“We want to ensure crypto ATM providers have robust practices to minimise the risk that their machines can be used to launder dirty money or to scam and defraud innocent people,” said Thomas, when announcing the notice in March.
The agency backed up its words with more action in June, this time announcing it was imposing an AUD5,000 (US$3,250) limit on cash deposits and withdrawals on CATMs, as well as scam warning signs, more robust transaction monitoring, and enhanced customer due diligence obligations.
“In light of the risks and harms we consider it is absolutely necessary to ensure the sector meets minimum standards and reduces the criminal misuse of crypto ATMs,” said Thomas in a June 3 press release.
He added that the new conditions were “designed to help protect individuals from scams by deterring criminals from directing them to a crypto ATM, as well as to protect businesses from criminal exploitation.”
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A few months later, in October of last year, Australia doubled down on its campaign against CATMs, as the country’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced new, stricter rules, while calling the machines a “high-risk product” linked to money laundering, scams, and child exploitation.
The new rules, announced on October 15, were part of broader powers being introduced to combat money laundering, terrorism financing, and crime risks.
“Australia has the highest number of [crypto] ATMs in the region, and the third highest in the world,” said Affairs Minister Tony Burke, in an October 14 speech to the National Press Club in Canberra, as reported by local outlet ABC News. “Six years ago, Australia had 23 of them. Three years ago, Australia had 200 of them. Now, we have 2,000 of them. It’s grown and grown rapidly.”
The Home Affairs Minister pointed to the high percentage of money going through CATMs that involves scams or money mules, as well as the difficulty of tracing cash purchases of digital currency, as reasons digital currency ATMs have come under particular scrutiny.
For this reason, he revealed that AUSTRAC would be granted new powers to target digital currency ATMs, including the ability to restrict or prohibit ‘high-risk products.’
Commenting on its most recent enforcement action against Cryptolink, AUSTRAC CEO Thomas said the agency would “continue to keep a close watch on the cryptocurrency sector, particularly businesses operating crypto ATMs, and will take action where we identify serious risks or non-compliance.”
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