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Scammers cost more than 12,000 people at least $100,000 each.
Jeff Carlson Senior Writer
Jeff Carlson writes about mobile technology for CNET. He is also the author of dozens of how-to books covering a wide spectrum ranging from Apple devices and cameras to photo editing software and PalmPilots. He drinks a lot of coffee in Seattle.
Expertise mobile technology, apple devices, generative ai, photography
Cryptocurrency investment fraud is on the rise, according to the FBI.
James Martin/CNETOnline scams are lucrative for criminals, and AI is making it easier to swindle US targets, according to the FBI’s latest Internet Crime Report. Each year, the FBI publishes statistics from its Internet Crime Complaint Center, and this year’s report broke the $20 billion barrier in losses, with more than 1 million complaints reported to the agency. In 2024, it recorded $16.6 billion in losses.
The complaint center tracks internet crimes across more than two dozen categories, including identity theft and ransomware. In 2025, phishing/spoofing were the top crime types, with 191,561 complaints. Next on the list was extortion, with 89,129 complaints.
The numbers are based on complaints filed with the FBI, though many crimes go unreported. An FBI representative told CNET by email that the agency “cannot speculate on how many instances of cyber-enabled crime victimization are unreported each year.”
See also: Here’s how to tell if a link is actually a scam.
Crypto and AI take bigger roles in scams
According to the report, the over-60 demographic remains most vulnerable to online scams, with “elder fraud” accounting for 201,266 complaints and $7.75 billion in reported losses. That’s an increase of 37% from 2024, with an average loss of $38,500. Of those, 12,444 people lost more than $100,000 due to scams.
The FBI also received 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints, with investment scams accounting for the largest share of losses for US citizens, totaling more than $11 billion.
“These scams are largely perpetrated by organized criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia using victims of human trafficking as forced labor to run the scam operations,” the report reads.
The rise of higher-quality AI systems is making it harder to spot scams, with 22,364 AI-related complaints costing people $893 million last year. That includes confidence/romance scams, where fake profiles and scripts that sound like believable human speech entice, and grandparent scams, or “distress” scams, where AI voice cloning mimics a relative in danger.
The National Consumer League also published a recent report showing that AI has more than doubled the average financial losses year over year.
Combating cybercrime
In addition to breaking down the different types of cyber scams, the 66-page report highlights the FBI’s IC3 Recovery Asset Team’s work, including a “financial fraud kill chain.” Out of 3,900 incidents reported, the team froze $679 million in assets out of $1.2 billion in attempted theft, a 58% success rate.
The FBI also formed a new Scam Center Strike Force to tackle cryptocurrency investment fraud by identifying the compounds and leaders in Southeast Asia behind the scams.
Other programs include Operation Level Up, which uncovers scams and notifies victims (78% of whom were unaware of the scam) and has a specific emphasis on dealing with call center fraud, ransomware and data breaches.
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