Warning: Scammers send couriers to collect cash in person for "crypto investment"

After building trust over weeks through messaging, phone calls, or a fake trading dashboard showing growing "profits," the scammer tells the victim that the next deposit must be made in cash rather than by bank transfer, because of a supposed processing delay, account limit, or verification issue. A courier — sometimes a hired driver with no knowledge of the scheme, sometimes a co-conspirator — is then sent to the victim's home or a nearby meeting point to physically collect an envelope or box of cash.

This in-person cash pickup is designed to route around the fraud controls banks and wire services use to flag suspicious transfers, since no bank transaction ever occurs. It also adds a layer of apparent legitimacy — a real person showing up in person can feel more official than a faceless online request — while making the money essentially unrecoverable the moment it's handed over.

The FBI's IC3 is warning that no legitimate investment platform, brokerage, or bank ever sends a courier to your home to collect cash. Any instruction to hand cash to a stranger at your door to fund an investment account should be treated as a scam, regardless of how convincing the account dashboard or the person collecting it appears.