The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released its 2023 report on cryptocurrency fraud, revealing that Americans lost a staggering $5.6 billion due to crypto-related scams. This represents a 45% increase compared to the previous year, highlighting the growing threat of these types of fraud.
The report shows that while cryptocurrency-related complaints made up just 10% of all complaints received by the FBI, they accounted for nearly half of the total financial losses reported. This means that crypto scams are hitting people harder than most other types of fraud.
Out of the 69,000 crypto-related complaints, individuals over the age of 60 were the most frequent victims, losing nearly $1.6 billion. Investment schemes were the most common type of fraud, making up about 71% of the cases. Other scams included call center fraud and government impersonation schemes, which made up around 10%.
The report also brought attention to the risk of labor trafficking, where workers are lured into abusive jobs abroad, often in call centers running scams known as “pig butchering.” These scams involve building trust with victims over time before convincing them to invest in fake schemes.
Other common scams included play-to-earn frauds, where people are tricked into buying tokens for online games only to have their wallets frozen, and fake crypto recovery services that target people who have already lost money.
James Barnacle, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, warned that it is very difficult to recover money lost through crypto scams, especially when using crypto kiosks. He also shared a surprising statistic: of the 3,000 people the FBI notified about being fraud victims this year, 75% did not know they had been targeted.
