Crypto investment scams are rampant! FBI report: Americans were tricked out of $11.4 billion last year, up 22% year over year

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a report released Tuesday that Americans lost as much as $11.4 billion to cryptocurrency scams in 2025, up 22% from 2024, indicating that digital-asset fraud is rapidly expanding in scale. The report said: “Crypto-investment scams are a sophisticated, long-term fraud scheme that lures victims into putting up huge sums of money through psychological manipulation, creating a false sense of legitimacy, and using cryptocurrency.” Behind the Scenes: Southeast Asian Criminal Syndicates The report further reveals that the masterminds behind these crypto scams are mostly transnational organized crime groups operating in Southeast Asia. They even use victims of human trafficking as forced labor, carrying out so-called “pig-butchering scams” or investment-luring operations for the fraud groups, forming a scaled fraud-industry supply chain. A report released in January this year by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis shows that in 2025, global losses from cryptocurrency scams totaled about $17 billion. According to the “Cryptocurrency Crime Report,” scams involving impersonation, fake exchanges, and tactics using AI-generated technology have now surpassed losses caused by hacker attacks, becoming the most common way to steal digital assets. Victims Surge: Average Loss per Person Exceeds $60k The FBI’s data also reflects the expansion of victim numbers. In 2025, there were 181,565 crypto-related complaint cases across the U.S., up 21% year over year; the average loss per case reached $62,604. The concentration of losses is even more alarming. Among all complainants, nearly 18,600 complainants suffered losses exceeding $100k, and many victims lost a lifetime of savings, including deposits and retirement funds.