The report includes reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion and information gathered from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crimes, which is an increase of over 300,000 more complaints than was received in 2019. Yes, internet crime continues to increase.

This Report tells us the top three crimes reported by victims in 2020 were phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams, and extortion. Victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes, and investment fraud. 2020 also saw the emergence of scams exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Internet Crime Center receiving over 28,500 complaints related to this from both businesses and individuals.

It is a very common technique of cyber criminals to exploit news items that may have a large following to entice victims to open or click on a fraudulent link.

Let’s bring it closer to home.  This report indicates 3,621 Arkansans victims reported Internet Crimes for a total loss of $16,140,036.  By age groups, the largest group of the impacted victims were ages 40-49 (43%), followed by those over 60, which represented 18% of the victims.  The largest total amount of loss ($5,299,929 or 33%) was represented by those age 50-59, followed by those over 60 whose losses totaled $3,397,078 or 21%.  The under 20 years of age category represented the smallest number of victims at 104 (3%) and the smallest total losses at $78,784 or 0.49%.

Upon looking at the Arkansas crime type by subject loss amounts Confidence Fraud/Romance was the largest category, followed by Non-Payment/Non-Delivery, Spoofing, Phishing/ Vishing/

Smishing/ Pharming and Lottery/Sweepstakes/Inheritance, respectively.  The largest internet subject crime count was for Non-Payment/Non-Delivery (25%), followed by Personal Data Breach (11%) and twenty-six other smaller categories.

If you are a victim of an internet crime, the FBI wants to remind you to immediately report suspected criminal internet activity to the IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center) at ic3.gov.  By reporting internet crime, victims are not only alerting law enforcement to the activity but aiding in the overall fight against cybercrime.  Public reporting is central to the mission and success of IC3.