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BEC Still #1, but Investment Fraud passes Romance Scams

by Gary Warner on March 23, 2022

https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2021_IC3Report.pdf

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (ic3.gov) has released their 2021 Internet Crime Report.

The number of complaints increased by 7% to 847,376 from 2020 to 2021, however the reported losses increased by 64% year over year to $6.9 Billion!

For several years, the #1 Cybercrime type has been Business Email Compromise followed by the #2 of Romance Scam. But this year, we had a change! The criminals have discovered how many people don’t understand investing in cryptocurrency and have turned Investment Scams into a new money factory.

#1 is still Business Email Compromise, but with only a 3% increase in victims, there was a 28% increase in reported financial losses. That’s an average loss of $120,000 per victim, compared to last year’s $96,700 per victim.

#2 dislodges Romance Scams by Investment Scams for the first time ever with a dramatic increase! Investment Scams went from 8,788 complaints to 20,561 complaints, while losses increased 333% from $33.6 Million dollars to $1.45 Billion dollars! THat’s an average loss of $70,810 per victim, up from $38,287 per victim last year!

#3 Romance Scams was quite similar to 2020 in the number of complaints, however the amount of losses still increased by 59%. In 2020, the average victim lost $25,272, but in 2021, the average victim lost $39,344. And these victims tend to be senior citizens!

Crime Type	2021 Losses	2020 Losses	Change in Loss	2021 Victims	2020 Victims	Change in Victims
BEC/EAC	$2,395,953,296	$1,866,642,107	28%	19954	19369	3%
Investment	$1,455,943,193	$336,469,000	333%	20561	8788	134%
Confidence Fraud/Romance	$956,039,739	$600,249,821	59%	24299	23751	2%
Personal Data Breach	$517,021,289	$194,473,055	165%	51829	45330	14%
Real Estate/Rental	$350,328,166	$213,196,082	64%	11578	13638	-15%
Tech Support	$347,657,432	$146,477,709	137%	23903	15421	55%
Non-Payment/Non-Delivery	$337,493,071	$265,011,249	27%	82478	108869	-24%
Identity Theft	$278,267,918	$219,484,699	27%	51629	43330	19%
Credit Card Fraud	$172,998,385	$129,820,792	33%	16750	17614	-5%
Corporate Data Breach	$151,568,225	$128,916,648	18%	1287	2794	-54%
Government Impersonation	$142,643,253	$109,938,030	30%	11335	12827	-12%
Advanced Fee	$98,694,137	$83,215,405	19%	11034	13020	-15%
Civil Matter	$85,049,939	$24,915,958	241%	1118	968	15%
Spoofing	$82,169,806	$216,513,728	-62%	18522	28218	-34%
Other	$75,837,524	$101,523,082	-25%	12346	10372	19%
Lottery/Sweepstakes/Inheritance	$71,289,089	$61,111,319	17%	5991	8501	-30%
Extortion	$60,577,741	$70,935,939	-15%	39360	76741	-49%
Ransomware	$49,207,908	$29,157,405	69%	3729	2474	51%
Employment	$47,231,023	$62,314,015	-24%	15253	16879	-10%
Phishing/Vishing/Smishing/Pharming	$44,213,707	$54,241,075	-18%	323972	241342	34%
Overpayment	$33,407,671	$51,039,922	-35%	6108	10988	-44%
IPR/Copyright and Counterfeit	$16,365,011	$5,910,617	177%	4270	4213	1%
Health Care Related	$7,042,942	$2,904,2515	-76%	578	1383	-58%
Malware/Scareware/Virus	$5,596,889	$6,904,054	-19%	810	1423	-43%
Terrorism/Threats of Violence	$4,390,720	$654,7449	-33%	12346	20669	-40%
Gambling	$1,940,237	$3,961,508	-51%	395	391	1%
Re-Shipping	$631,466	$3,095,265	-80%	516	883	-42%
Denial of Service/TDoS	$217,981	$512,127	-57%	1104	2018	-45%
Crimes Against Children	$198,950	$660,044	-70%	2167	3202	-32%

Investment Scam Examples

What does an Investment Scam look like? The most common ones these days are promising a guaranteed rate of investment. Thousands of such Investment Scam sites have been created and most of them are being pushed on social media. People who claim to be successful on the sites are often only trying to earn a commission by referring others to the site.

It only took a couple hours to find more than 500 live Investment Scam sites last month. Many of these sites are still live today.

Many of the sites are unlikely to attract real investors because of how ridiculous their rates are. No one believes that they can earn 50% per hour … however this site promises that if you can trick your associates into investing, you’ll get 5% of whatever they deposit. This is quite common.

Crypto-Trades[.]uk

A more believable site promises a much lower rate, such as 3% per day for investments up to $4,999 dollars. If the site owners believe they have a big fish, they may actually PAY the 3% for a small investment, using that as proof that the system works in order to lure a larger investment. This site, and many like it, then offer 6% daily profits for investments of at least $5,000, or 9% daily profits for investments of at least $30,000.

The site pictured above claims to be “Crypto-Trades[.]uk” and offers proof of their legitimacy by providing a link to their “Certificate of Registration.”

Crypto-Trades dot UK

claiming to be the British Corporation, “Crypto Ltd” which is a real company, just not them.

They are regularly abused in that way. CryptSparkFX[.]com, Crypto-binary[.]com, CryptoTrust[.]ltd, CryptoAlphas[.]uk, CryptoHive[.]uk, Webull-Investments[.]com, ExploreFX[.]uk, Crypto-Gain[.]ltd, Slushpool-investment[.]com, Intrex-invest[.]com, and FedelityFunds-Crypto[.]com are some of the other Investment Scam sites that use their address, hoping to gain credibility from it.

Intrex-Invest[.]com

FedelityFunds-Crypto[.]com

Slushpool-investment[.]com

CryptoHive[.]uk

A True Victim Story

A successful businessman in my area came to me to ask for help. He had originally joined a group such as those above called CryptoHood[.]io which later became CryptoHood[.]co. He invested a small five figure number on their site, and got scammed, losing it all. When he was complaining about being scammed, someone in a Facebook investment group let him know they too had been scammed by those people. But good news! He had found a legitimate company that really paid out! EasonFXPro[.]com! Because he had been burned already, he put in a smaller investment this time. $2,500. An amount that this CEO “could afford to lose.”

The scammers let him know that because he was a VIP investor, they were going to let him use their “special” app, so that he could watch his trades in real time. The theory was that their advanced Artificial Intelligence was doing Bitcoin trading to make amazing profits. The app they used was in the Google Play store … but the VIP version was only available via their special URL. They convinced him to download the app from “blockchain.en.uptodown[.]com/android/download/2264221.” That was his “personalized” version. He was truly amazed by the bot, and could enter “his” bitcoin address into any blockchain explorer to see his earnings. (We checked the address, and it was doing HUGE volumes of small transactions … it just wasn’t his wallet. He was led to believe that the transactions were “the AI doing trades” for him. Within a couple months, his bitcoin address had funds worth nearly $250,000! So he decided to cash out.

In order to cash out, he just had to pay them a “Sigma Fee” of 10%. He refused ($25,000!?!?!?!)

They then offered to let him withdraw just $50,000, for a Sigma Fee of only $5,000.

He was harassed on the phone for a while by “Elizabeth Frances” and “Evelyn” and “Mark Gerrard” and “Steven Williams” but chose to file an IC3.gov report about his experiences and walk away from Crypto Investments for a while.