The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has published its annual Internet Crime Report, revealing that Americans lost a record $11.36 billion to cryptocurrency-related fraud in 2025 — a 22% increase from 2024 and more than half of all internet crime losses reported to the agency. The scale of the crisis represents a dramatic escalation in financial harm from digital fraud, with artificial intelligence now being used to make scams more convincing and harder to detect.
Investment Fraud Is the Biggest Driver
Cryptocurrency investment fraud — commonly called “pig butchering” — was the single greatest source of financial harm to Americans in 2025, generating $7.2 billion in reported losses. These schemes typically involve criminals posing as romantic interests or financial advisors online, gradually building trust before convincing victims to invest large sums in fraudulent crypto platforms that appear legitimate but are entirely controlled by scammers.
The FBI described the tactics as relying on “psychological manipulation, the appearance of legitimacy, and exploitation of cryptocurrencies to deceive victims into investing large sums of money.” Once funds are deposited, they are immediately transferred through multiple wallets and mixing services to obscure the trail.
The Human Cost
People over 60 were the hardest hit, with seniors losing an estimated $4.43 billion to crypto scams in 2025. Disturbingly, victims under 18 were also increasingly targeted — roughly 10% of cybercrime complaints involving minors were tied to crypto or crypto ATMs, resulting in more than $5 million in reported losses from this age group.
The FBI received 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints in 2025, up 21% from the year before — though the agency acknowledges that actual losses are significantly higher, as the majority of victims never report fraud to authorities.
AI Is Amplifying Scams
For the first time in the nearly 25-year history of the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report, a dedicated section on artificial intelligence was included. The 2025 report recorded 22,364 AI-related complaints costing Americans nearly $893 million, as scammers began using AI-generated voices, deepfake videos, and AI-written messages to add layers of credibility to their deceptions.
Where the Criminals Are
The FBI identifies the primary source of large-scale crypto fraud as organised criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia — particularly in Cambodia, Laos, and Burma — that operate sprawling scam centres using victims of human trafficking as forced labour. The FBI’s Operation Level Up notified 3,780 victims in 2025 and saved an estimated $225.8 million by intervening before funds were fully transferred to criminal networks.
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