FBI Reports 53 Percent Increase in Crypto Investment Scams and Issues Warning

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) noted a notable increase in scams involving cryptocurrency investments in 2023. The FBI asserted in its most recent "Internet Crime Report 2023" that scams involving cryptocurrency investments increased by 53% in 2018. Investment scams involve con artists guiding prospective victims toward cryptocurrency investments and convincing them to purchase fictitious tokens, which ultimately returns all of the money to the con artists. The promises of large returns on investment used to lure victims of these scams. Scammers typically use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to look for possible victims.
According to the FBI report, investment frauds involving cryptocurrency increased by 53 percent, from $2.57 billion (about Rs. 21,260 crore) in 2022 to $3.94 billion (about Rs. 32592 crore) in 2023.
The majority of these scam victims were in the 30-to 49-year-old age range. On the other hand, elderly people were more likely to fall for tech support scams. Comparing figures from 2022, the FBI said it received 8,80,400 financial scam complaints last year with the amount of loss coming close to $12.5 billion (roughly Rs. 103428 crore). This marks a 10 percent and 22 percent rise in number of complaints and amount stolen compared to 2022.According to FBI data, in 2023, similar financial crimes were reported in 6,601 and 3,405 complaints from Canada and India, respectively, following the US. Cybercriminals appear to be stepping up their attempts to con members of the cryptocurrency community as the market gets closer to its previous all-time high capitalization of $3 trillion (about Rs. 2,48,20,350 crore).

The FBI has issued a warning regarding the increasing number of these incidents from the previous year, but Scam Sniffer, a market research platform, has highlighted the scam situation for the cryptocurrency industry through 2024. According to its data, in February of this year, roughly 57,000 victims fell victim to crypto phishing scams that cost them about $47 million, or roughly Rs. 388 crore.