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Fraudsters swindled people out of an eye-popping amount of money using cryptocurrency-related schemes in 2023, according to the FBI. When it came to such losses in the U.S., the agency found some states were hit harder than others.
Total estimated losses from cryptocurrency scams reached $5.6 billion in 2023, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said this week. That was an increase of 45% from the prior year.
Bad actors most frequently turned to schemes like investment, tech support, personal data breach and extortion for cryptocurrency fraud last year, according to the IC3.
Of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and America’s territories, California was where the most losses were reported from fraud schemes using some type of cryptocurrency, at roughly $1.155 billion.
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The data showed there was a more than $743 million margin between reported cryptocurrency fraud losses in the Golden State and those recorded by people in the second-place state.
Including California, the five states where the IC3 said Americans were scammed out of the most money included:
1. California: $1.155 billion
Aerial view of California State Capitol. (Visions of America/Joe Sohm/Universal Images Group via Getty Images / Getty Images)
2. Texas: $411.9 million
Aerial view of Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images / Getty Images)
3. Florida: $390.2 million
Tallahassee, Florida. (iStock)
4. New York: $317.3 million
Battery Park is seen at the southern tip of New York City. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images / Getty Images)
5. New Jersey: $179.4 million
Trenton, New Jersey. (iStock / iStock)
Michael Nordwall of the FBI noted in the IC3’s cryptocurrency fraud-focused report that the “decentralized nature of cryptocurrency, the speed of irreversible transactions, and the ability to transfer value around the world make cryptocurrency an attractive vehicle for criminals, while creating challenges to recover stolen funds.”
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The whopping $5.6 billion in cryptocurrency fraud losses were linked to the over 69,000 total complaints that the IC3 fielded specifically about such ploys in 2023.
“While the number of cryptocurrency-related complaints represents only about 10 percent of the total number of financial fraud complaints, the losses associated with these complaints account for almost 50 percent of total losses,” Nordwall said.
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In 2023, the IC3 received more than 880,400 complaints across all types of internet crime. Those complaints amounted to over $12.5 billion in losses.