According to City of London Police and the national reporting agency Action Fraud, 66 % of all purchase scam reported in the UK last year was committed by crypto scams.
This figure rises by 16 % over 2023, with victims losing a total of$ 830.4 million ( 649 million ) to total, which amounts to approximately$ 549 million ( 428 million ) in crypto fraud.
The total financial loss represented a 13 % increase compared to the total number of Action Fraud reports, which decreased by 7 % in 2024.
Given that 36 % of all information made allusion to one social networking or another, the information also highlights how social media is becoming increasingly important to fraudsters.
The most widely used social media platforms for scammers were WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, which made up 40 %, 18 %, and 14 % of all reports involving social media.
Another interesting fact is that 2 % of all frauds were perpetrated by swindlers using AI-generated video to trick victims.
Popular British finance guru Martin Lewis ( 44 % ), followed by Elon Musk ( 40 % ), and British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson ( 8 % ), was the most frequently impersonated celebrity.
Scammers are using social media and digital platforms to become more advanced, according to the City of London Police.
” Investment fraudsters will frequently be very proficient in what they do and will often make you a reassuring and alluring pitch,” according to Detective Superintendent Oliver Little. Do not be drawn to the idea of making “easy income,” as the stock and share market is anything but.
Action Fraud’s statistics on the rise in crypto-related scams are supported by UK-based legitimate firms, with James Pritchard, Watson Woodhouse’s Head of Personal Prosecutions, telling that his professional experience supports this trend.
” Yes, I think the frequency of crypto fraud is rising,” he said. And what makes Pritchard’s accounts of cryptocurrency, and why it’s becoming more prevalent in fraud, especially intriguing is how it shows how crypto may blur the line between reality and fiction.
In the early days of my job as a lawyer, I recall a client seeing me with a notice she had received that claimed to be from an American prince who needed her assistance getting his millions into the UK.
The client “was desperate” to believe what she had been told was true, but it was” clearly” part of a scam, according to Pritchard.
He continued,” But crypto is unique.” Items that seem too good to be true have occurred, according to the statement.
Pritchard cites Laszlo Hanyecz’s famous payment of 10,000 BTC for two pizzas in May 2010 (amount that is now worth upwards of$ 770 million ) and how some traders have made “astronomical” profits.
” And swindlers victim on that,” he said. They make astounding returns, but I think people are more likely to consider those promises because of the character of crypto, whereas they might be even more skeptical if the promises were made in the form of a letter from an American prince.
Similar to how many items in traditional investing that might be considered “run of the mill” are, such as sending cash to offshore organizations, may undermine would-be scam mechanisms.
The privacy of bitcoin and ease of world exchange appeal to scammers as well, according to Pritchard, who argues that the transparency of blockchains does not always facilitate simple tracking.
He added that if the wallet may be traced back to its original owner, depending on where the greatest holder resides, a legal action prosecution may prove extremely challenging, if not impossible, and that there are experts who can do so.
Such research may suggest that Action Fraud’s 2025 figures may point to a further rise in crypto fraud, even though UK and international authorities are becoming more adept at recovering stolen crypto.
This would be in line with Chainalysis’s latest bitcoin crime report, which suggests that crypto con income globally may have reached a record high of$ 12.4 billion next year.
edited by Stacy Elliott.
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