By Chapin Fay

Last fall, a 74-year-old widowed retired teacher from Douglassville, Berks County, lost $16,000 after a caller claiming to be from the Social Security Administration said the teacher’s bank accounts had been compromised. The caller instructed the victim to withdraw almost all the money in her accounts and feed it into a bitcoin ATM, promising a certified check would arrive at the house that night.

The teacher was not trying to invest in cryptocurrency. There was no bad bet on bitcoin and no market crash. The crypto kiosk was simply the point where cash became an irreversible payment to a criminal.

Pennsylvania is seeing enough of these cases that they can no longer be treated as isolated mistakes. According to the FBI,…