Cryptocurrency Scams and Major Frauds Lead to $21 Billion in 2025 in Cyber ​​Theft, FBI Reports

Online scams are lucrative for criminals, and artificial intelligence is making it easier to fool American targets, according to the FBI’s latest cybercrime report. Every year, the FBI releases statistics from its office Internet Crime Complaint Centerand This year’s report It broke the $20 billion loss barrier, with more than a million complaints submitted to the agency. In 2024, losses amounting to $16.6 billion were recorded.

The Complaint Center tracks cybercrime across more than two dozen categories, including identity theft and ransomware. In 2025, phishing/spoofing was the top crime type, with 191,561 complaints. Next on the list was extortion, with 89,129 complaints.

These numbers are based on complaints filed with the FBI, although many crimes go unreported. An FBI representative told CNET via email that the agency “cannot speculate on how many cases of cybercrime victims go unreported each year.”

See also: Here’s how to tell if a The link is actually a scam.

Cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence are playing larger roles in scams

According to the report, the over-60 demographic remains the most vulnerable to online fraud, with “senior fraud” accounting for 201,266 complaints and $7.75 billion in reported losses. This represents a 37% increase from 2024, with an average loss of $38,500. Of these, 12,444 people lost more than $100,000 to scams.

The FBI also received 181,565 Complaints related to cryptocurrencieswith Investment scams This represents the lion’s share of losses for American citizens, totaling more than $11 billion.

“These scams are largely committed by organized criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia using human trafficking victims as forced labor to run the scams,” the report said.

The rise of high-quality AI systems is making it harder to detect scams, with 22,364 AI-related complaints costing people $893 million last year. These include trust/romance scams, where fake profiles and texts lure you that sound like believable human speech, grandparent scams, or “mayday” scams, where voice cloning using AI mimics a relative in danger.

The National Consumers Association too I published a report recently Which shows that AI has doubled the average financial losses year on year.

Combating cyber crimes

In addition to detailing different types of online fraud, the 66-page report highlights the work of the FBI’s IC3 Asset Recovery Team, including the “Financial Fraud Killing Chain.” Out of 3,900 reported incidents, the team froze assets worth $679 million out of a $1.2 billion theft attempt, a success rate of 58%.

The FBI has also formed a new Fraud Center strike force to address cryptocurrency investment fraud by identifying pools and leaders in Southeast Asia behind the scams.

Other programs include Operation Level Up, which detects fraud and notifies victims (78% of whom were unaware of the scam) and specifically focuses on dealing with call center fraud, ransomware and data breaches.