How Did Cybercriminals Steal a Record $16.6 Billion in 2024?

Thieves on the Internet took a massive $16.6 billion in 2024, the FBI said in its yearly Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report. Thats a big jump from the $12.5 billion stolen in 2023. The rise shows how common online tricks are getting, especially ones using digital money like cryptocurrency and targeting older people.

The report gives a peek at how much cybercrime hurts the United States, but it doesn‘t tell the whole story. It only counts people who told the FBI about their problems. In 2024, the agency got 859,532 complaints about cyber tricks. Still, Cynthia Kaiser, a deputy assistant director, said these numbers don’t show everything happening in the world of internet crime because lots of folks dont report it.

Shifting to Digital Crime

“Everything in our lives going online has made it easier for crooks to attack,” Kaiser explained during a talk about the report. She said that since 2020, bad guys have moved from stealing in person to stealing online.

More than 250,000 people said they lost money to scams. One trick called the fake toll scam, got 58,271 complaints and cost people $129,624. In these scams, people get texts telling them to pay tiny fees. Some of these tricks are linked to a group that speaks Chinese and works through Telegram.

Older folks over 60 lost the most, with more than $4.8 billion gone. Scams with cryptocurrency hit them hard, taking $2.8 billion. Investment scams, like the “pig butchering” ones, also cost them $1.8 billion.

How Pig Butchering Works

Pig butchering scams start with a random or weird text from someone unknown. The crooks act friendly or even flirty, building trust over time. Then they trick people into putting lots of cash into fake digital money projects. Many older victims, especially those retired, end up losing all their savings.

The report showed that investment scam losses shot up fast. They went from $3.3 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024. These scary numbers prove how dangerous online scams are, especially for older people who might not see the tricks coming. As internet crime keeps growing, staying careful and aware is super important to stop more money from disappearing.