The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) fielded more than 300,000 reports of internet crimes in 2017, and losses totaled more than $1.4 billion, according to the 2017 Internet Crime Report released on Monday.
Compromised business email accounts led to $676 million in losses in 2017, more than any other form of internet crime. Other leading forms of internet crimes were confidence and romance schemes totaling $211.3 million in losses, non-payment or non-delivery schemes totaling $141.1 million in losses, investment schemes totaling $96.8 million in losses, personal data breaches totaling $77.1 million in losses, and identity theft totaling $66.8 million in losses.
“We want to encourage everyone who suspects they have been victimized by online fraudsters to report it to us,” IC3 Unit Chief Donna Gregor said. “The more data we have, the more effective we can be in raising public awareness, reducing the number of victims who fall prey to these schemes, and increasing the number of criminals who are identified and brought to justice.”
From 2000 to 2017, IC3 received more than 4 million complaints from victims of online crimes. IC3 analyzes complaints to identify trends and forwards complaints to appropriate law enforcement agencies. In 2015, for example, IC3 began forwarding complaints about fraudulent investment opportunities to the FBI’s Houston Field Office. The information was used to uncover an “elaborate international advance fee and money laundering scheme” that cost victims more than $7 million, IC3 reports.
Along with the release of the 2017 Internet Crime Report on Monday, IC3 released a public service announcement that features actress Kirsten Vangsness, who portrays an FBI analyst on the crime drama “Criminal Minds.” The campaign aims to raise public awareness about business email scams, ransomware, tech support fraud, non-payment/non-delivery schemes, hacking, phishing, and other forms of internet crimes.