Criminals are stealing billions of dollars through crypto scams in the USA. The FBI reports rip-offs amounting to around 5.6 billion dollars, over 5 billion euros, for 2023. Older people are particularly affected.
Criminals are stealing enormous sums of money worldwide through crypto fraud. The losses for victims in 2023 amount to over five billion euros. This represents an increase of 45 percent over the previous year. The figures come from a report by the FBI, which evaluates complaints and losses from crypto fraud that were received in 2023 by the central contact point for complainants at home and abroad.
Ten percent of complaints account for 50 percent of losses
The FBI explained that the fast and often irreversible nature of digital currency transactions is particularly attractive to fraudsters. In addition, cryptocurrencies enable global transactions, which offers criminals additional security. According to the FBI, nearly 69,500 complaints about crypto fraud were filed with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2023.
57,762 of these complaints came from the US, while only 444 reports came from Germany. According to the report, German victims complained of losses of over 15 million euros. Even though complaints about crypto fraud only accounted for about ten percent of all financial fraud cases, they are responsible for almost 50 percent of the resulting losses.
Almost 1.5 billion stolen from people over 60
Around 16,800 complaints about crypto fraud came from people over 60 years of age. The losses for this age group amounted to over 1.6 billion dollars, almost 1.5 billion euros. By comparison, the age group from 20 to 29 years lost a total of around 168 million dollars.
A particularly popular fraud scheme is so-called investment scams. Victims are tricked into believing that they can make large profits by investing via online portals. However, the deposits often end up in the fraudsters' accounts. According to the FBI report, the criminals often pose as call center employees, IT support or government employees. Investment scams have resulted in losses of over 1.1 billion euros.
German pensioner loses all his savings
In Germany, such an investment scam recently caused a stir when an 82-year-old pensioner from Wittstock in Brandenburg lost 40,000 euros by trading in cryptocurrencies. The man wanted to supplement his pension and was drawn to an online trading portal through advertising that promised high returns.
After investing four figures, he believed he had increased his wealth to almost 300,000 euros. But when he tried to withdraw the money, he found that he could not access it. He then reported the matter to the police.
