The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed that losses due to cryptocurrency investment fraud cases increased from $2.57 billion in 2022 to $3.94 billion in 2023, an increase of 53% from the previous year.
According to the FBI's Internet Crime Report 2023, criminals are finding more ways to deceive their victims, luring them with promises of returns on their investments.
Cryptocurrency investment fraud to increase in 2023
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received more than 880,400 complaints in 2023, resulting in more than $12.5 billion in potential losses. The agency noted that complaints and losses increased by 10% and 22%, respectively, compared to 2022.
“While these numbers are impressive, we know they are being conservative when it comes to cybercrime in 2023. When the FBI recently compromised the Hive ransomware group's infrastructure, approximately 20% of Hive's victims “Considering that we found that only % of victims reported to law enforcement. More reports from victims means greater insight for the FBI,” the agency said.
Investment fraud caused the most losses, increasing 38% from $3.31 billion in 2022 to $4.57 billion in 2023. Of the $4.57 billion, crypto investment fraud amounted to $3.94 billion.
Cryptocurrency scammers target business emails
In addition to losses from cryptocurrency investment fraud, IC3 also received 21,489 business email compromise (BEC) complaints, resulting in adjusted losses of more than $2.9 billion.
“BEC is a sophisticated scam that targets both businesses and individuals making funds transfers. This scam involves victims compromising legitimate business email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion techniques to send fraudulent funds transfers. is frequently carried out when a person commits a crime,” the FBI explained.
While BEC schemes initially involved requesting W-2 information and compromising vendor emails, IC3 has shown that fraudsters can transfer custodial accounts created at financial institutions to crypto exchanges and third-party I found myself starting to use it for payment processors. The FBI claimed that this new development highlights the importance of using multi-factor authentication as an additional layer of security.
Meanwhile, the FBI has thwarted some scams due to quick action taken by IC3's Recovery Assets Team (RAT). RAT introduced Financial Fraud Kill Chain (FFKC) initiative for 3,008 incidents with potential losses of $758 million, freezing his $538.39 million, representing a 71% success rate Did.
