The FBI said on Monday in a new report that victims reported over $5.6 billion in cryptocurrency-related fraud in 2023, a 45% increase from losses reported in 2022.
Fraud overall increased due to a spike in investment scams involving cryptocurrencies. Compared to $2.57 billion in 2022, victims reported losing almost $4 billion on cryptocurrency-related investments in 2023.
The FBI has never released a report specifically focusing on fraud involving cryptocurrencies from a broader collection of yearly fraud data, an FBI official informed reporters over the phone. Nearly half of the $12.5 billion in online fraud losses reported to the FBI last year were related to cryptocurrency fraud.
The FBI is working to increase victim reporting of cryptocurrency fraud in order to recover the money that has been stolen, as well as public awareness of the problem. According to an FBI official, a large number of victims have accrued enormous debt to offset losses from these fraudulent investments.
The official stated that the report highlights the “persistent threat to the American public” posed by foreign con artists. “Every threat the FBI looks into is impacted by cryptocurrencies.”
The global economy loses billions of dollars a year to ransomware attacks and tech-support scams, two types of digital crimes that the FBI looks into. According to a recent report, cryptocurrency is the preferred form of payment for a large number of these schemes.
The FBI official claimed that an increasing number of con artists worldwide are participating in investment scams, which entail winning over victims’ trust and tricking them into investing cryptocurrency in phony companies.
According to the official, anyone can become a victim of a crypto-fraud scheme. The report states that in 2023, losses reported totaling $1.6 billion were attributed to individuals over 60.
Thousands of Americans have fallen victim to complex cryptocurrency investment schemes, sometimes run by Chinese crime syndicates operating out of war-torn Myanmar and other Southeast Asian nations.
