FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report: Internet Crime Losses Hit a Record $20.9 Billion

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than one million complaints in 2025 for the first time in its 25-year history, with reported losses reaching $20.9 billion. That figure represents a 26% increase over the $16.6 billion recorded in 2024, and it follows five consecutive years of growth that have now put cumulative losses since 2020 at $71.3 billion. The FBI IC3 2025 annual report makes one thing clear: online fraud is not stabilizing. It is accelerating.

This article breaks down the report's key findings — total losses, the crime types driving them, who is being hurt most, and what the data means for anyone trying to stay safe online.

Record Losses, Record Complaints: The 2025 Snapshot

The IC3 received 1,008,597 complaints in 2025, up 17.3% from 859,532 the year before (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). That translates to roughly 3,000 complaints filed every single day. The average reported loss per victim was approximately $20,700.

Of the total complaints, 453,000 involved cyber-enabled fraud, accounting for $17.7 billion of the $20.9 billion total. Phishing remained the single most-reported crime type with 191,561 complaints, though phishing losses grew sharply from $70 million to $215.8 million year over year — a threefold increase despite relatively flat complaint volume, suggesting scammers are getting more precise about who they target.

One data point that deserves attention even though the dollar figure is comparatively small: ransomware losses jumped 259% in 2025, from $12.5 million to $32.3 million, with 63 new ransomware variants identified during the year. The financial damage from ransomware is almost certainly undercounted, since many corporate victims never report to the IC3, but the acceleration in variants signals an expanding threat against hospitals, utilities, and critical infrastructure.

Investment Fraud: The Costliest Crime in America

Investment fraud was the single largest driver of losses in the IC3 2025 report, accounting for $8.648 billion — more than 40% of all reported losses (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). The four-year trajectory is striking: losses were $3.31 billion in 2022, rose to $4.57 billion in 2023, climbed to $6.57 billion in 2024, and reached $8.648 billion in 2025.

The dominant mechanism is cryptocurrency investment fraud, sometimes called pig butchering. In these schemes, fraudsters establish a relationship with a victim over weeks or months through social media, dating apps, or messaging platforms, then introduce what appears to be a highly profitable crypto trading platform. Victims are coached to make increasingly large deposits, watching fictional returns accumulate on the fraudulent platform until they attempt to withdraw and find the funds are gone. Crypto investment fraud alone generated over $7.2 billion in losses in 2025 (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report).

The FBI's Operation Level Up, a proactive outreach initiative to alert active pig butchering victims before they lose more money, had notified 8,103 victims by the time the report was published. Approximately 77% of those victims were unaware they were being scammed at the time the FBI contacted them (FBI — Operation Level Up).

Cryptocurrency Fraud Now Accounts for Over Half of All Losses

Beyond investment fraud specifically, the 2025 report tracks all complaints where cryptocurrency was used as a payment method or was central to the crime. That figure reached $11.3 billion across 181,565 complaints — meaning cryptocurrency was involved in roughly 55% of all reported losses despite appearing in only about 18% of complaints (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). For comparison, crypto-related losses were $9.3 billion in 2024 and $5.6 billion in 2023, putting the two-year growth at more than 100%.

The scale of these losses reflects how thoroughly scam infrastructure has shifted to cryptocurrency. Fraudsters direct victims to send funds to crypto wallets or kiosks specifically because transactions are irreversible and difficult to trace. In a coordinated law enforcement response, the FBI, Dubai Police, and Chinese Ministry of Public Security arrested at least 276 individuals and dismantled at least nine scam centers operating pig-butchering schemes. Six defendants were charged with federal fraud and money laundering for managing centers running under names including "Ko Thet Company" and "Sanduo Group" (U.S. Department of Justice). These operations are largely run out of Southeast Asia, where trafficked workers are forced to staff the fraud centers around the clock.

Business Email Compromise Stays Relentlessly Expensive

Business email compromise generated $3.046 billion in losses from 24,768 complaints in 2025, an average of roughly $123,000 per incident (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). The four-year trend — $2.7 billion in 2022, $2.9 billion in 2023, $2.77 billion in 2024, and $3.04 billion in 2025 — shows losses that have remained stubbornly above $2.7 billion for four consecutive years despite widespread corporate awareness campaigns.

BEC works by impersonating a trusted party — a CEO, a vendor, a legal contact — to instruct an employee to wire funds or redirect a payment. Eighty-six percent of BEC-related losses in 2025 were transmitted via wire transfer or ACH, making recovery difficult once funds leave. Businesses reported over $30 million in BEC losses in 2025 with a confirmed AI nexus, meaning scammers used AI-generated emails or voice cloning to make the impersonation more convincing (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). That figure almost certainly understates AI-assisted BEC, since most victims cannot determine after the fact whether AI was involved.

Older Americans Lost $7.7 Billion — A 59% Jump

Adults aged 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints with the IC3 in 2025 and reported losses of $7.748 billion, a 59% increase from the $4.885 billion they reported in 2024 (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). Complaints from this age group rose 37% over the same period (from 147,127 in 2024). Older Americans now account for approximately 37% of all reported cybercrime losses despite representing a smaller share of total complaints.

Investment fraud was the largest single loss category for victims over 60, accounting for more than $3.5 billion of their $7.748 billion total. Romance scams, though much smaller in absolute terms at $929 million for all ages, saw a 30% increase and disproportionately targeted older adults, often running for months before victims recognized the deception (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report).

AI-enabled fraud has become a particular threat for this demographic. Older adults filed more than 3,100 complaints referencing AI in 2025, with losses exceeding $352 million. Grandparent scams — where criminals use voice cloning to impersonate a distressed grandchild or family member asking for emergency funds — resulted in more than $5 million in reported losses in 2025 alone (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). The actual number is likely far higher: the IC3 acknowledges that older victims significantly under-report fraud due to embarrassment and unfamiliarity with reporting mechanisms.

AI-Enabled Fraud Makes Its IC3 Debut

For the first time, the 2025 IC3 report treated artificial intelligence as a formal crime descriptor. The IC3 received 22,364 complaints in 2025 involving some form of AI, with total losses of $893 million (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). The breakdown by crime type: investment fraud accounted for $632 million of that total, BEC for $30 million, and tech support fraud for $19.5 million.

The FBI notes explicitly that most victims never recognized AI was involved — which means $893 million is a floor, not a ceiling. Fraudsters are using AI to generate personalized outreach at scale, create deepfake videos of celebrities endorsing fake investment platforms, clone voices of family members or executives, and produce forged identity documents. These tools have sharply lowered the technical barrier for running sophisticated fraud operations, and they are increasingly accessible to criminal networks with limited resources.

The introduction of AI as a tracked category is significant beyond the 2025 numbers. It creates a baseline that will make future growth in AI-assisted fraud quantifiable in ways it was not before.

Tech Support Fraud and the $2.1 Billion Impersonation Wave

Tech support fraud and customer support impersonation generated $2.134 billion in losses in 2025, up from $1.46 billion in 2024 — a 46% increase in a single year (FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report). These scams typically begin with a pop-up warning or an unsolicited call claiming the victim's computer is infected or their account has been compromised. The caller poses as a representative from a well-known technology company, bank, or government agency.

Victims are directed to grant remote access to their device, "verify" their identity through financial transactions, or move money into cryptocurrency for "safekeeping." Once remote access is granted, attackers can harvest credentials, install malware, or drain accounts in real time. Older adults are heavily targeted, and tech support fraud is often the entry point for a broader financial fraud sequence that escalates into investment scams or government impersonation.

How to Protect Yourself

The data in the FBI IC3 2025 annual report is useful not just as a measure of damage done, but as a guide to where the highest risks actually sit. A few principles cover a large share of the threat landscape.

Unsolicited contact is almost always a red flag. Whether it arrives as a pop-up, a text, a phone call, or a social media message, any unsolicited communication asking you to move money, share credentials, or grant device access should be treated with suspicion by default. Legitimate institutions do not initiate contact this way.

Cryptocurrency requests are a reliable scam signal. Investment platforms that can only be accessed through an unknown app, or that require you to send cryptocurrency to an external wallet, are almost universally fraudulent. No legitimate investment firm operates this way.

Verify independently. If someone contacts you claiming to be from your bank, the IRS, or a technology company, hang up and call the official number listed on their website. Do not use contact information provided by the person who called you.

Report to IC3.gov. Filing a report does not guarantee recovery, but it feeds the data that drives law enforcement action. The DOJ's scam center takedowns and the FBI's Operation Level Up both relied on IC3 complaint data to identify patterns and targets. Research from FINRA suggests that consumers who are educated about fraud tactics are up to 80% less likely to fall victim — meaning awareness is a meaningful protective factor, not just a platitude (Bressler law firm summary of IC3 2025 report).

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the FBI IC3 and how do I file a report?

The Internet Crime Complaint Center is the FBI's centralized platform for reporting suspected internet crime. It was established in 2000 and has received more than 9 million complaints in total. Reports are filed at ic3.gov. While filing a complaint does not initiate an individual investigation, the data is used to identify criminal patterns and support law enforcement operations.

How much money did internet crime cost Americans in 2025?

The IC3 received 1,008,597 complaints in 2025 with total reported losses of $20.877 billion, a 26% increase from $16.6 billion in 2024. The average reported loss per victim was approximately $20,700. These figures cover only crimes reported to the IC3 and are widely considered to understate actual losses.

What types of fraud caused the most financial damage?

Investment fraud led all categories with $8.648 billion in losses, followed by business email compromise at $3.046 billion and tech support fraud at $2.134 billion. When measured by payment method, cryptocurrency-related losses reached $11.3 billion — more than half of all reported losses.

Are older Americans more vulnerable to online fraud?

The data strongly suggests so. Adults aged 60 and older reported $7.748 billion in losses in 2025 — 37% of all cybercrime losses — while filing 201,266 complaints. Their losses grew 59% year over year, faster than any other demographic tracked in the report. Investment fraud, romance scams, tech support fraud, and AI-enabled grandparent scams all disproportionately affect this group.

What is pig butchering and how does it work?

Pig butchering is a form of cryptocurrency investment fraud where scammers build a relationship with a victim over weeks or months before introducing a fraudulent trading platform. Victims are encouraged to make progressively larger deposits while watching fabricated profits accumulate. When they try to withdraw, they discover the platform is fake and the money is gone. Pig butchering accounted for the majority of the $7.2 billion in crypto investment fraud losses recorded in the 2025 IC3 report.

Conclusion

The $20.9 billion recorded in the FBI IC3 2025 annual report is the largest single-year loss total in the IC3's history, but the more significant data point may be the trajectory. Losses have grown every year since 2020, with no sign of plateauing. Investment fraud has nearly tripled in three years. Elder fraud losses nearly doubled in twelve months. AI-enabled crime is now a tracked category with almost $900 million in confirmed losses in its first year of measurement.

The implication is that the same broad public awareness campaigns and individual vigilance that defined the response to the last decade of cybercrime are no longer sufficient on their own. The tools available to fraudsters — voice cloning, AI-generated personalization, offshore scam infrastructure — have advanced faster than consumer education. Closing that gap will require faster disruption of fraud networks at the source, stronger financial industry controls on irreversible transactions, and reporting systems that make it easier, not harder, for victims to come forward.

Sources

FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report - Internet Crime Losses Hit a Record $20.9 Billion (2026)