More than 33,000 Americans over the age of 60 have fallen victim to crypto scammers.

According to the report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at the FBI, around 150,000 complaints related to cryptocurrency fraud were registered in 2024. This is a 66% increase compared to the previous year.

Almost two-thirds of financial losses ($5.8 billion) were due to crypto investment scams. Americans over 60 were particularly affected, accounting for 33,369 complaints. The losses for older adults reached $2.84 billion.

“Criminals use various methods to gain the trust of their victims, only to convince them to invest funds in fake crypto platforms. To achieve this, fraudsters employ sophisticated social technologies, including AI, creating fictitious identities and manipulating victims,” said FBI Deputy Assistant Director James Barnacle (James Barnacle).

FBI Director Kashyap Patel (Kashyap Patel) stated that the greatest harm to elderly citizens in America has been caused by pig butchering schemes (“pig slaughtering”). One notable example cited was the case where scammers posed as romantic partners and tricked a 62-year-old Florida resident into investing $300,000 in a fake crypto platform. The victim, believing in the fake asset growth charts, lost all her savings and subsequently sought protection from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Earlier, security experts from TRM Labs stated that the largest criminal organizations, including North Korean hackers and Mexican drug cartels, rely on Chinese underground banking syndicates that launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency, converting digital money into fiat.