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FBI: U.S. lost record $12.5B to online crime in 2023

41 points by mikece 3y ago

morbicer 3y ago
Meanwhile wage theft in US is $50 billion and FBI couldn't care less https://www.epi.org/press/wage-theft-costs-american-workers-50-billion/ https://www.epi.org/press/wage-theft-costs-american-workers-...
blackhawkC17 3y ago
This figure seems relatively low as a percentage of GDP.
yellow_postit 3y ago
Crypto delivering on its mission of ease of access and transfer across borders
StarterPro 3y ago
I'm in the wrong business
COGlory 3y ago
I've read that there was just a huge amount of fraud (hundreds of billions) in the payroll protection scheme, and that a lot of that fraud was virtual. How is 12.5 billion possibly the record?
- rileymat2 3y ago
  It is reported losses to the FBI.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Not all fraud committed with a computer is "online crime".
shmde 3y ago
Okay a big amount. Now tell me how much did Pentagon lose during its auditing ?
PopAlongKid 3y ago
>tech/customer support and government impersonation scams, targeting mostly the elderly, led to more than $1.3 billion in losses. And in the U.S. at least, many of these elderly are very interested in trying to deduct these losses from their taxable income. As a skeptic, I think it is too tempting to claim "I was scammed out of $200K in digital assets" (which may have been purchased in the first place as part of the alleged scam) in order to actually hide those assets from family and/or the government.
- wenebego 3y ago
  This seems like victim blaming.
  - PopAlongKid 3y ago
    That would only apply if every single person who claimed they were a victim, was in fact a victim. I'm speculating that is not the case, because there are strong financial incentives to lie.
    - jszymborski 3y ago
      This is precisely what people say right before they start victim blaming.
      - PopAlongKid 3y ago
        Maybe too subtle, but I'm saying there are some scammers who call themselves victims, to try to cover up their own scam. I don't see how "victim blaming" could apply in this case.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- alexambarch 3y ago
  Oh boy I sure hope I receive my grandmother's Monero cold wallet in her will!
mobilemidget 3y ago
I was just reading the dating app crypto scamming market is $75B worldwide.
- kramerger 3y ago
  What is that? Do you mean scams that start on tinder? Pig butchering?
- which 3y ago
  Not that the number isn't absurdly large, but there are a few reasons to think that estimate is about an order of magnitude too high. The first of which is that Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar all together only have a GDP of about $100 billion. 90% of these scams are run from that region of the world. The second is that these sorts of analyses end up unknowingly including the addresses of so-called "P2P exchangers" i.e. unlicensed but not necessarily entirely black market currency exchanges such as hawaladars. If one of the fraudsters converts their Tether to another currency with one of these exchangers, that address will be labelled as "fraud" even if all of the exchangers other customers are legitimate (informal money transfer systems are used for remittances in a lot of the world). The fact that unofficial exchangers often have business relationships with each other also even further complicates analyses that look solely at on-chain data. Lastly, no existing analysis, including by companies like Chainalysis, even comes close to $75 billion.
  - manquer 3y ago
    Keep in mind 75B is over 4 years the GDP numbers cited is for a single year . The fact it is such a large portion of the GDP is one reason why these scam compounds are able to operate without getting shutdown , there is indirect support from government officials. John Oliver mentioned it is as much as 50% of the GDP in Cambodia in a recent segment. Romance scams are not new, but this has grown so quickly because of COVID , all these countries had sudden loss of tourism revenue, the gangs exploited desperate people to run these scams . A vast majority of people scammed like this do not report to the authorities. They are too embarrassed to be scammed this way. If victims don’t report then nothing gets labeled as fraud. Also remember these scammers run exchange apps (fake-ish ones ) to fool people in losing more money by showing their investments going up and try to make you pay more as “tax” when you finally try to withdraw and so on . The scam is crypto based, but the transactions don’t necessarily always happen in crypto at all, so analysis of chain alone is not sufficient to know the scale .
tiahura 3y ago
Way low. Only a small fraction gets reported. My elderly terminally-ill mom lost a couple hundred thousand and we never reported it. I assume most don't. I really don't understand why more political pressure isn't put on backbone operators to blacklist more.

41 points by mikece 3y ago

Meanwhile wage theft in US is $50 billion and FBI couldn't care less https://www.epi.org/press/wage-theft-costs-american-workers-50-billion/ https://www.epi.org/press/wage-theft-costs-american-workers-...

blackhawkC17 3y ago

This figure seems relatively low as a percentage of GDP.

yellow_postit 3y ago

Crypto delivering on its mission of ease of access and transfer across borders

StarterPro 3y ago

I'm in the wrong business

COGlory 3y ago

I've read that there was just a huge amount of fraud (hundreds of billions) in the payroll protection scheme, and that a lot of that fraud was virtual. How is 12.5 billion possibly the record?

rileymat2 3y ago
It is reported losses to the FBI.
HWR_14 3y ago
Not all fraud committed with a computer is "online crime".

shmde 3y ago

Okay a big amount. Now tell me how much did Pentagon lose during its auditing ?

PopAlongKid 3y ago

>tech/customer support and government impersonation scams, targeting mostly the elderly, led to more than $1.3 billion in losses. And in the U.S. at least, many of these elderly are very interested in trying to deduct these losses from their taxable income. As a skeptic, I think it is too tempting to claim "I was scammed out of $200K in digital assets" (which may have been purchased in the first place as part of the alleged scam) in order to actually hide those assets from family and/or the government.

wenebego 3y ago
This seems like victim blaming.
- PopAlongKid 3y ago
  That would only apply if every single person who claimed they were a victim, was in fact a victim. I'm speculating that is not the case, because there are strong financial incentives to lie.
  - jszymborski 3y ago
    This is precisely what people say right before they start victim blaming.
    - PopAlongKid 3y ago
      Maybe too subtle, but I'm saying there are some scammers who call themselves victims, to try to cover up their own scam. I don't see how "victim blaming" could apply in this case.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
alexambarch 3y ago
Oh boy I sure hope I receive my grandmother's Monero cold wallet in her will!

mobilemidget 3y ago

I was just reading the dating app crypto scamming market is $75B worldwide.

kramerger 3y ago
What is that? Do you mean scams that start on tinder? Pig butchering?
which 3y ago
Not that the number isn't absurdly large, but there are a few reasons to think that estimate is about an order of magnitude too high. The first of which is that Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar all together only have a GDP of about $100 billion. 90% of these scams are run from that region of the world. The second is that these sorts of analyses end up unknowingly including the addresses of so-called "P2P exchangers" i.e. unlicensed but not necessarily entirely black market currency exchanges such as hawaladars. If one of the fraudsters converts their Tether to another currency with one of these exchangers, that address will be labelled as "fraud" even if all of the exchangers other customers are legitimate (informal money transfer systems are used for remittances in a lot of the world). The fact that unofficial exchangers often have business relationships with each other also even further complicates analyses that look solely at on-chain data. Lastly, no existing analysis, including by companies like Chainalysis, even comes close to $75 billion.
- manquer 3y ago
  Keep in mind 75B is over 4 years the GDP numbers cited is for a single year . The fact it is such a large portion of the GDP is one reason why these scam compounds are able to operate without getting shutdown , there is indirect support from government officials. John Oliver mentioned it is as much as 50% of the GDP in Cambodia in a recent segment. Romance scams are not new, but this has grown so quickly because of COVID , all these countries had sudden loss of tourism revenue, the gangs exploited desperate people to run these scams . A vast majority of people scammed like this do not report to the authorities. They are too embarrassed to be scammed this way. If victims don’t report then nothing gets labeled as fraud. Also remember these scammers run exchange apps (fake-ish ones ) to fool people in losing more money by showing their investments going up and try to make you pay more as “tax” when you finally try to withdraw and so on . The scam is crypto based, but the transactions don’t necessarily always happen in crypto at all, so analysis of chain alone is not sufficient to know the scale .

tiahura 3y ago

Way low. Only a small fraction gets reported. My elderly terminally-ill mom lost a couple hundred thousand and we never reported it. I assume most don't. I really don't understand why more political pressure isn't put on backbone operators to blacklist more.