By The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received a total of 443 internet crime complaints from Nigeria in 2020.
This was contained in the 2020 Internet Crime Report of the United States intelligence agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) report published on Wednesday.
According to the report, Nigeria has the same number of complaints as Pakistan and ranks 16th ahead of China (442), Colombia (418), and Hong Kong (407) in a list of 20 countries.
The United Kingdom topped the list with 216,633 complaints and is followed by Canada (5,399), India (2,930), Greece (2,314), Australia (1,807), South Africa (1,754), and France (1,640).
Other countries are Germany (1,578), Mexico (1,164), Belgium (1,023), Brazil (951), the Philippines (898), Italy (728), Spain (618), and Netherlands (450).
While complaints from the U.S. were given a special focus and broken down according to the states, the report comprised information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime.
The latest figure indicates an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019 and losses exceeding $4.2 billion.
Phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams, as well as extortion, were the top-three crimes reported by victims in the year under review.
Similarly, victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes, as well as investment fraud.
Part of the text accompanying the report read:
“Notably, 2020 saw the emergence of scams exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic. The IC3 received over 28,500 complaints related to COVID-19, with fraudsters targeting both businesses and individuals.
In addition to statistics, the IC3’s 2020 Internet Crime Report contains information about the most prevalent internet scams affecting the public and offers guidance for prevention and protection.
It also highlights the FBI’s work combating internet crime, including recent case examples.
Finally, the 2020 Internet Crime Report explains the IC3, its mission, and functions. The IC3 gives the public a reliable and convenient mechanism to report suspected internet crime to the FBI.
The FBI analyses and shares information from submitted complaints for investigative and intelligence purposes, for law enforcement, and for public awareness.
With the release of the 2020 Internet Crime Report, the FBI wants to remind the public to immediately report suspected criminal internet activity to the IC3 at ic3.gov.
By reporting internet crime, victims are not only alerting law enforcement to the activity but aiding in the overall fight against cybercrime.”
