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

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report on Tuesday stating that in 2025, U.S. residents suffered losses of up to $11.4 billion due to cryptocurrency scams, an increase of 22% compared with 2024, indicating that the scale of digital-asset fraud is rapidly expanding.

The report said: “Cryptocurrency investment scams are a sophisticated, long-term scheme that involves psychological manipulation, creating the appearance of legitimacy, and using cryptocurrencies to trick victims into putting large sums of money in.”

The masterminds: criminal groups in Southeast Asia 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 to carry out so-called “pig-butchering” or investment-con scheme operations for the fraud groups, forming a scaled-up fraud industry chain. A report published by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis in January this year shows that in 2025, losses from cryptocurrency scams worldwide totaled about $17 billion. According to the “Cryptocurrency Crime Report,” scams involving impersonation, fake exchanges, and scams using AI-generated technology have now surpassed losses caused by hacker attacks, becoming the most common way to steal digital assets. Rising number of victims: average loss per person exceeds $60k The FBI’s data also reflects the expansion in the scope of victims. In 2025, there were 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaint cases across the United States, up 21% year over year; the average loss per case was as high as $62,604. The concentration of losses is even more alarming. Among all complainants, nearly 18,600 complainants had losses exceeding $100k, and many victims lost their lifelong savings as a result, including deposits and retirement funds.