$12.5 Billion In Online Scams Reported To FBI Last Year

A record $12.5 billion in losses from online scams were reported to the FBI in 2023, fueled by a surge in cryptocurrency investment fraud, as per a report by Sean Lyngaas for CNN.

Many of these scams involved criminals pretending to be someone’s love interest and tricking them into investing in phony cryptocurrency schemes.

This figure represents a more than $2 billion increase in total losses from scams reported in 2022 and marks the highest tally of losses from digital scams since the FBI began reporting on the subject more than two decades ago.

Timothy Langan, the FBI’s executive assistant director, emphasized in the report’s foreword, "Profit-driven cybercriminals and nation-state adversaries alike have the capability to paralyze entire school systems, police departments, healthcare facilities, and individual private sector entities."

Of the $12.5 billion in losses reported in 2023, more than a third, or $4.5 billion, were due to investment scams.

Many of these scams involved criminals pretending to be someone’s love interest and tricking them into investing in phony cryptocurrency schemes, according to the FBI.

A recent CNN investigation shed light on the staggering scale of these types of crypto schemes through interviews with fraud victims, investigators, and even the scammers themselves.

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