Nigeria ranks 12th in FBI’s foreign cybercrime complaints with 1,219 reports in 2025

Nigeria ranked 12th among foreign countries filing cybercrime complaints with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre in 2025, with 1,219 reports submitted. This comes as global cybercrime losses surpassed $20 billion for the first time.

The FBI’s IC3 2025 Annual Report, released to mark the centre’s 25th anniversary, recorded 1,008,597 complaints from victims worldwide, representing total losses of $20.877 billion, a 26 per cent increase from 2024’s $16.6 billion.

Canada led foreign complainants with 7,479 reports, followed by India (5,879), Japan (5,764), and the United Kingdom (4,106). Nigeria’s 1,219 complaints placed it behind Pakistan (1,514) but ahead of Greece (1,205) and Iran (1,101).

The report identified Nigeria among the countries frequently receiving fraudulent wire transfers. Hong Kong topped the list with 1,858 transactions, followed by Mexico (1,782), Indonesia (1,685), Vietnam (1,583), and the Philippines (1,538).

Investment fraud and business email compromise drive record losses

Investment fraud was the costliest crime at $8.648 billion for the second year in a row. Business email compromise accounted for $3.046 billion from 24,768 complaints, and tech support scams caused $2.134 billion in losses.

The FBI noted that cryptocurrency investment fraud alone resulted in losses of up to $7.228 billion across 61,559 complaints, representing a 48 per cent increase in complaints and a 25 per cent rise in losses from 2024. These scams typically involve sophisticated long-term operations run by organised criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia.

“These scams are largely perpetrated by organised criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia using victims of human trafficking as forced labour to run the scam operations,” the FBI report stated.

Read also: Nigerian ‘Tech Queen’ Sapphire Egemasi arrested by the FBI over $1.3m cyber fraud

The newly formed U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Columbia Scam Centre Strike Force is investigating scam compounds in Cambodia, Laos, and Burma, focusing on identifying key leaders, including Chinese organised crime affiliates.

Elder fraud and emerging AI threats escalate

Individuals aged 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints, reporting losses totalling $7.748 billion. This represents a 37 per cent increase in complaints and a 59 per cent increase in losses compared to 2024.

Tech support scams targeting seniors amounted to $1.040 billion, while investment fraud affecting this age group reached $3.519 billion.

Artificial intelligence has become a major tool for cybercriminals, leading to 22,364 complaints and over $893 million in losses. Criminals are using AI to generate realistic fake content for various scams, including business email compromises, romance scams using cloned voices, and fake celebrity endorsements in investment schemes.

The FBI’s IC3 Recovery Asset Team achieved a 58 per cent success rate in 2025, freezing $679.013 million of the $1.163 billion in attempted thefts through its Financial Fraud Kill Chain process. The team initiated 3,900 incidents, including 642 cases involving victims aged 60 and above.

Operation Level Up, launched in January 2024, notified 3,780 cryptocurrency investment fraud victims in 2025, with 78 per cent unaware they were being scammed. The operation prevented an estimated $225.871 million in losses and referred 38 victims for suicide intervention.

The report emphasised that cyber threats will continue evolving as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, urging organisations and individuals to strengthen cybersecurity measures, enable multi-factor authentication, and report suspicious activity promptly to IC3.gov.