Internet crimes spike as losses exceed USD4.2 billion – FBI

Last updated: 2021/03/17 at 7:45 PM

starconnect Published 17 March 2021

FBI

Admin l Wednesday, March 17, 2021

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released the Internet Crime Complaint Center 2020 Internet Crime Report, Including COVID-19 Scam Statistics.

According to FBI, there were a total of 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crimes, showing an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019.

The report according to FBI reported losses in excess of $4.2 billion.

According to the report, top three crimes reported by victims in 2020 include phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams and extortion.

“Victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes, and investment fraud”, the report said.

Notably, 2020 saw the emergence of scams exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic, the FBI said. There were over 28,500 complaints related to COVID-19, with fraudsters targeting both businesses and individuals.