Scammers fleeced Coloradans out of a total of $187.6 million in 2023, according to a new report by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Altogether, 11,475 people across the state reported being victimized, making Colorado seventh in the nation for the number of reports per capita. The number of complaints in Colorado in 2023 was 195.2 per capita.
Washington, D.C., led the country with 555.1 complaints per capita.
While the number of Coloradans suffering losses last year was down from the 11,683 in 2022, the overall financial hit was up from the $178.3 reported that year.
The scams that netted the most money in Colorado in 2023 were investment fraud at $60 million; business email compromise at $57 million; and tech support schemes at $23 million.
Nationally, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center fielded more than 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion. Complaints rose nearly 10% from 2022 and losses jumped 22%.
Swindles involving cryptocurrency are a major driver behind investment fraud, said Brian Blauser, a supervisory special agent with the FBI in Colorado. He said he talked to a local individual Monday who had lost $3.4 million in cryptocurrency-related fraud.
“It’s staggering and the loss amounts associated with the investment fraud category as a whole are a staggering $4.5 billion nationwide,” Blauser said.
Scammers will use social media and text messages to lure people into investment ploys.
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“The bad guys or the scammers will reach out and try to develop some kind of rapport or relationship with you,” Blauser said. “They’re really hoping for somebody to respond to them and then they’re just trying to further engage with you.”
The fraudsters will likely set up a website showing that a person is making great gains from their investments in things like digital currency, Blauser said.
Precautions people can take include contacting banks or other financial institutions directly rather than through phone numbers in emails that are seeking money or action of some kind.
“Criminals continue to develop new tricks to defraud people, so think twice before clicking on a link and report suspicious activity to law enforcement,” FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek said in a statement.
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