What FBI Data Says About Fraud, Scams and AI

The short version

Americans reported US$20.877 billion in losses to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2025, up 26% from 2024 and the highest on record. Investment fraud, mostly cryptocurrency scams, was the largest category.[1][2] People aged 60 and over reported the most losses. For the first time, the annual report included a section on AI: 22,364 complaints and US$893.3 million in losses where victims mentioned AI.[3] That figure is a floor, not a measurement of AI-enabled fraud.

The headline numbers

Year	Complaints	Reported losses	Change in losses
2023	880,418	US$12.5 billion	+22%
2024	859,532	US$16.6 billion	+33%
2025	1,008,597	US$20.877 billion	+26%

The 2025 report, published in April 2026, puts the average loss per complaint at US$20,699. "Cyber-enabled fraud," meaning complaints where criminals used the internet or other technology to steal money, data or identities, made up 452,868 complaints (45%) and US$17.697 billion in losses (almost 85%).[1] Complaints passed one million for the first time, an average of almost 3,000 a day.[4]

Largest crime types by loss

Crime type	2023 losses	2024 losses	2025 losses	2025 complaints
Investment	US$4.57bn	US$6.57bn	US$8.649bn	72,984
Business email compromise	US$2.95bn	US$2.77bn	US$3.047bn	24,768
Tech/customer support	US$924.5m	US$1.46bn	US$2.135bn	47,794
Personal data breach	US$744.2m	US$1.45bn	US$1.315bn	67,456
Confidence/romance	US$652.5m	US$672.0m	US$929.3m	23,159
Government impersonation	US$394.1m	US$405.6m	US$797.9m	32,424

All figures are from the FBI's three-year comparison table in the 2025 report.

Investment fraud grew by 89% in two years. Crypto investment fraud alone accounted for 61,559 complaints and US$7.228 billion in 2025, up 48% in complaints and 25% in losses from 2024. The FBI ties these scams largely to Southeast Asian criminal groups that use trafficked labour (see How Golden Triangle Scam Syndicates Use AI). Its Operation Level Up, launched in January 2024, had notified more than 8,000 victims by the time of the report and estimates more than US$500 million in savings. In 2025 it notified 3,780 victims, 78% of whom did not know they were being scammed. It referred 38 to victim specialists for suicide intervention.[1]

Cryptocurrency is recorded as a "descriptor" rather than a crime type. Complaints mentioning crypto numbered 181,565 in 2025, with US$11.367 billion in losses, up 21% and 22%. That is more than half of all reported losses.[5][6] Crypto ATM and kiosk complaints reached 13,460, with US$389 million lost, and people aged 60 and over accounted for US$257 million of that. Recovery scams, which target people who have already lost money, produced 10,516 complaints and US$1.4 billion in losses. Those losses may include amounts from the original scam.[1]

Business email compromise stayed near US$3 billion a year. In 2025 the FBI's Recovery Asset Team handled 3,900 Financial Fraud Kill Chain incidents involving US$1.16 billion in attempted theft and froze US$679 million, a 58% success rate.[1]

Tech support and government impersonation together produced more than 80,000 complaints and more than US$2.9 billion in losses in 2025, often from call centres abroad.[1] Government impersonation losses roughly doubled in a year.[7]

Phishing/spoofing was the most-reported crime type (191,561 complaints), but losses were small at US$215.8 million[1] because phishing is usually the first step in other crimes. Extortion had 89,129 complaints. The FBI received more than 75,000 sextortion submissions and referred more than 5,700 involving minors to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Ransomware reports totalled 3,611, with US$32.3 million in direct losses. The FBI notes this excludes downtime and recovery costs.[1]

Losses by age group, 2025

Age	Complaints	Losses
Under 20	31,254	US$67.1m
20–29	112,069	US$563.1m
30–39	153,293	US$1.7bn
40–49	167,066	US$2.957bn
50–59	124,820	US$3.7bn
60+	201,266	US$7.748bn

Losses rise steeply with age. People aged 60 and over filed about 20% of all complaints but reported about 37% of losses.[5]

Elder fraud

The FBI's 2025 elder fraud section reports 201,266 complaints from people aged 60 and over, up 37%, and US$7.748 billion in losses, up 59%. The average loss was US$38,500, and 12,444 older complainants lost more than US$100,000 each.[1][8] These growth rates imply roughly 147,000 complaints and US$4.9 billion in losses in 2024. The FBI's dedicated 2023 Elder Fraud Report recorded more than 101,000 complainants aged 60 and over and about US$3.4 billion in losses. Elder losses have therefore more than doubled in two years.

Losses for people 60 and over in 2025, by crime type:

Investment: US$3.52 billion (16,926 complaints)[1]
Tech/customer support: US$1.04 billion (21,333 complaints)[1]
Confidence/romance: US$584 million[1]
Business email compromise: US$568 million[1]
Government impersonation: US$413 million[1]
Cryptocurrency (descriptor): US$4.35 billion (42,271 complaints)[9]
AI-related (descriptor): US$352.5 million (3,143 complaints)[1]

One FBI source is inconsistent. A 2025 FBI elder-fraud brochure, and the FBI press release for the annual report, describe older Americans' losses as "up 37%."[3][10] The annual report itself shows a 37% rise in complaints and a 59% rise in losses.[1] The report's own figures support 59%.

The AI data

The 2025 report is the first annual IC3 report with an "AI Related" descriptor. The FBI defines it narrowly: "Information reported contains a reference to artificial intelligence (AI)."[1] No comparable figure exists for 2023 or 2024.

Crime type	AI-related complaints	AI-related losses
Investment	4,356	US$632.0m
Business email compromise	135	US$30.3m
Tech/customer support	574	US$19.5m
Confidence/romance	626	US$19.0m
Personal data breach	1,204	US$18.8m
Employment	691	US$12.6m
Extortion	1,764	US$2.9m
All AI-related	22,364	US$893.3m

AI-related complaints that also involved cryptocurrency accounted for US$658.7 million. The FBI's narrative adds that "distress" scams using voice cloning cost victims more than US$5 million. It also says AI-linked investment losses of US$632 million, set against more than US$8 billion in total investment losses, show "many victims do not realize the extent AI may be involved in scams."[1]

FBI warnings about AI and deepfakes

3 December 2024, I-120324-PSA, "Criminals Use Generative Artificial Intelligence to Facilitate Financial Fraud":[11] lists AI-generated text, images, cloned audio and video used in romance, investment and impersonation schemes. It advises agreeing a secret word with family, limiting public images and voice recordings, and listening for odd tone and word choice.[12][13]
15 May 2025, I-051525-PSA, "Senior US Officials Impersonated in Malicious Messaging Campaign":[1] since April 2025, actors used texts and "AI-generated voice messages" impersonating senior officials to target current and former officials and their contacts. The FBI warned: "do not assume it is authentic."[14]
4 September 2025: the FBI and the American Bankers Association Foundation released an infographic on spotting deepfake scams.[1]
5 December 2025: a warning that criminals use altered proof-of-life media in virtual kidnapping ransom schemes.[1]
19 December 2025: a follow-up saying the impersonation campaign targeting senior officials was continuing.[1]

Earlier, in May 2024, the FBI's San Francisco field office warned of AI-driven phishing and voice and video cloning targeting businesses.[15]

What the data cannot tell you

Only reported complaints are counted. IC3 data comes from voluntary submissions by victims or people acting for them.[6] Many victims never report, because of embarrassment, small losses, not knowing where to report, or reporting only to a bank, local police or the Federal Trade Commission, which keeps its own separate database. The FBI says it cannot account for cases reported directly to field offices.[1] The true totals are higher by an unknown amount.

Rising numbers partly reflect more reporting. Growth in complaints and losses can come from greater awareness, outreach and easier reporting, not only from more crime. The 2025 report marks the first year complaints passed one million.[4]

Each complaint gets one crime type. Analysts assign a single category,[1] so a romance scam that becomes a crypto investment fraud is counted only once. Descriptors such as "Cryptocurrency" and "AI Related" cut across categories and overlap with each other.

Figures change over time. The FBI says descriptive data "can evolve based upon investigative or analytical proceedings." Duplicate complaints are removed "as much as possible." Age is optional, so age tables leave out complaints with no age given.[1]

Losses are reported, not verified. Foreign-currency losses are converted where possible. Ransomware losses exclude downtime, lost business and remediation.[1]

AI is not a crime type. AI appears only as a descriptor triggered when a complainant mentions it.[1] A victim who never realised a voice was cloned, or that a "trader" used a chatbot, produces a complaint with no AI flag. The US$893 million figure measures what victims knew and said, not how much fraud involved AI. Because the descriptor is new, there is no baseline for measuring growth.