One click and everything’s gone. That’s the danger of cybercrime.
We’ve heard the warnings for years, but despite those warnings, high-tech heists are soaring in the number of victims and the amount of money lost.
“These fraudsters are professionals. They’re professional criminals. And they have a playbook to deal with potential victims,” said Melanie Devoe, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Her group tracks some of the fastest-growing types of cybercrime, like romance and investment scams, where cryptocurrency offers unique challenges for investigators.
Devoe says with that one click, time is of the essence, “And from there, you know, it’s off to the races. They develop a long-term relationship with a person, and eventually, they bring up the idea of investing in cryptocurrency.”
By moving from cash and bank transfers to crypto, the criminals immediately have the advantage. Crypto is easier to hide because the FBI doesn’t have agreements with many of the entities that hold and transfer crypto.
New numbers from the U.S. Department of Justice show in fiscal year 2025, the DOJ seized nearly $2.5 billion dollars in crypto linked to cybercrimes. That’s 10 times the amount seized just five years ago, when only $237 million was tracked down.
“Cryptocurrency fraud, investment fraud is growing exponentially,” James Kaylor told WRAL Investigates. He’s a Supervisory Agent with the FBI, leading a white-collar crime unit.
He says crypto is the currency of choice for criminals. “Crypto can move really, really quickly,” Kaylor said. He added, “It really is easier for them to launder that money rather than go through financial institutions.”
But according to the FBI, the crypto that is recovered is a drop in the bucket compared to cybercrime reports filed with the Internet Crime Complaint Center. In 2024, victims reported losing $9.3 billion in crypto scams. The targets: the vulnerable, like elderly or lonely people looking for love.
North Carolinians fell victim to cyber investment scams the most, with 178 complaints.
Kaylor says the bad guys create quite a sales pitch, taking advantage of the increasing capability of artificial intelligence, “It’s going to be manipulated websites, manipulated graphics, AI manipulated charts to show that you’re making money.”
By the time you realize something doesn’t add up, Kaylor said it’s probably too late.
Kaylor says, “Once they’ve bled you dry, and you start to see that it’s a scam, that’s when they kind of break off all contact and they’re gone and you’ve been wiped out,” Kaylor said.
We went through federal court filings and found several federal forfeiture cases involving Wake County victims, including a 67-year-old man from Harnett County who invested nearly $2 million in a fake crypto trading site after being wooed by a woman in a romance scam.
By the time the FBI got involved, they could only recover about the $300,000 of the victim’s money. Aside from the challenge of finding the money, it’s also difficult to determine who exactly it belongs to, because there is usually more than one victim.
“If we seized a crypto wallet that a bunch of different victims’ money went through, we can only give [back] how much is there,” Kaylor said.
Kaylor has some simple advice to keep your accounts safe. First, never give any money to someone you’ve only met online. And just because a website looks legitimate, with company logos and similar web addresses, don’t buy it.
But most of all, Kaylor points to the golden rule, “It’s a cliche, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t do it.”
