FBI: US investors will lose $9.3 billion to crypto scams in 2024

Author: Turner Wright, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its annual report detailing complaints and losses caused by scams and fraud involving cryptocurrencies in 2024.

According to the report released on April 23, IC3 received more than 140,000 complaints involving cryptocurrencies in 2024, resulting in losses of approximately $9.3 billion. The bureau reported that individuals over the age of 60 were most affected by cryptocurrency-related fraud, with approximately 33,000 complaints and losses of $2.8 billion.

“Last year, losses reported to IC3 hit a new high, totaling $16.6 billion,” the report said. “Fraud accounted for the majority of losses reported in 2024, and ransomware once again became the most prevalent threat to critical infrastructure, with complaints up 9% from 2023,” the report noted, adding that as a group, people aged 60 and over suffered the greatest losses and filed the most complaints.

The report added that losses from this increased by about 66% since 2023, from about $5.6 billion to $9.3 billion. The largest portion of losses were due to crypto investment schemes, while the most complaints were related to "sextortion" schemes, in which scammers manipulate photos and videos to create explicit content. Other scams include schemes using crypto ATMs or kiosks.

In February, the FBI reported that its "Operation Upgrade" saved potential victims of cryptocurrency fraud an estimated $285 million between January 2024 and January 2025. However, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis speculates that 2025 could see the most scams yet, as generative AI is making the practice "more scalable and affordable for bad actors."

Chainalysis estimates that global illicit cryptocurrency trading volume in 2024 was around $41 billion, with about 25% of that money involved "hacking, extortion, trafficking, or scamming." Some of the most high-profile crimes include the theft of $1.4 billion worth of cryptocurrency from the Bybit exchange in March and the theft of more than $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency by North Korean hackers.