Reported by: Tad Simons Technology Journalist/Thomson Reuters

At the 21^st Annual Anti-Money Laundering & Anti-Financial Crime Conference, held by the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), Rebecca Kiethley, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) fraud specialist, explained that people over 70 years of age control 75% of the wealth in America, and over the next 10 years somewhere between $30 trillion and $68 trillion in assets is expected to be transferred from the Baby Boomer generation to their Gen X and Millennial generation heirs.

According to the FBI’s 2021 Elder Fraud Report, seniors over 60 lost more than $1.7 billion to fraud last year (a 74% increase from 2020), with the average victim losing $18,246. In fact, people over 60 lost $239 million in 2021 to investment schemes alone, many of which were get-rich-quick scams involving digital assets, or cryptocurrencies. And it is estimated that for every 1 complaint the FBI receives, 44 go unreported.

Kiethley said that seniors are most likely to fall victim to investment scams, but they can also be taken in by romance scams, Ponzi schemes, fake lottery prizes, tech-support scams, real-estate swindles, or people pretending to represent a government agency such as the IRS, Medicare, or Medicaid.

Unfortunately, victims of such scams are much less likely to get their money back if the scheme involves crypto, due to the anonymous, decentralized nature of digital currencies. The FBI has created a special virtual-asset investigative unit to combat an expected rise in crypto crime, and the unit has already had some success in recovering stolen digital assets using sophisticated financial forensics. The odds of recovering money lost to a crypto scam, however, are still very long.

In a typical crypto investment scam, for instance, the scammer might mention a great crypto investment opportunity and invite the victim to participate by giving them a small amount — $100, for example. A week later, the scammer might show the victim a crypto wallet with $1,000 in it as proof that the investment has paid off. Then the scammer might persuade the victim to “invest” more money — $500 or $1,000 this time — and claim soon after that the victim has made $10,000. Excited by such gains, the victim might then be willing to part with $10,000 or more, after which both the scammer and money disappear.

Investment scams are the most common ones involving cryptocurrency, but other types of fraud can involve digital assets as well. Indeed, according to the FBI’s Elder Abusereport, “cryptocurrency is becoming the preferred payment method for all types of scams,” because digital assets are so difficult to trace.

Read full report: https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/investigation-fraud-and-risk/acams-seniors-crypto-scams/