The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned Thursday that scammers were impersonating law enforcement officers and government officials to dupe people into giving up money and personal information.
Almost 61,000 complaints regarding such impersonation scams were reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) between January 2025 and July 2026, the FBI said. The losses from these complaints totaled over $1.6 billion, the FBI said in a Sept. 17 public service announcement.
The fraudsters use various pretenses to make initial contact with the target, including accusing them of wrongdoing and threatening negative consequences.
For instance, the scammer can accuse the target of being connected to a crime and threaten them with arrest and prosecution. The targets are asked to pay money to have the charges removed. According to the FBI, these types of scams make up the largest share of government impersonation complaints….