Americans lost nearly $900 million to AI-powered scams, FBI says

The 2025 Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Internet Crime Report shows that Americans reported $893,346,472 in AI‑related scam losses. Those losses stem from 22,364 AI-related complaints. And these figures represent only the reported losses, which may well be the proverbial tip of the iceberg...

DoJ Disrupts Southeast Asia Crypto Fraud Networks, Freezes $3.8 Million in Assets

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Wednesday announced the results of a sweeping action undertaken by government authorities and private sector companies to combat cyber-enabled and cryptocurrency fraud targeting Americans. The "Disruption Week" operation began May 18, 2026, leading to the...

Scam compounds hiring “AI models” to seal the deal in deepfake video calls

Scam compounds in Southeast Asia have already become modern slave farms, trapping victims and forcing many of them to become scammers for them. Now they've added another type of worker to the mix: so-called AI models. These professional scammers conduct video calls with their targets, charming th...

Scam Guard for desktop: A second set of eyes for suspicious moments

Scams aren’t so obvious anymore. They're well-written, have working grammar, and can lead victims to very convincing branded webpages. Scammers increasingly use AI tools to clone sites and create highly sophisticated scams at scale, so don't expect to rely on spotting obvious typos anymore. That’...

Europol Raids Disrupt Black Axe Cybercrime Ring in Spain

Authorities caught 34 members of the notorious Black Axe gang in Spain known for stealing millions of Euros through online romance scams and email fraud...

The Ultra-Realistic AI Face Swapping Platform Driving Romance Scams

Capable of creating “nearly perfect” face swaps during live video chats, Haotian has made millions, mainly via Telegram. But its main channel vanished after WIRED's inquiry into scammers using the app...

260 romance scammers and sextortionists caught in huge Interpol sting

Online crime of all kinds is deplorable, but romance scammers and sextortionists who target the most vulnerable victims are among the worst. Now, there’s likely a place for 260 of them in jail, thanks to international law enforcement. Interpol's Operation Contender 3.0 targeted alleged criminals...

A week in security (August 11 – August 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Italian hotels breached for tens of thousands of scanned IDs National Public Data returns after massive Social Security Number leak Romance scammers in Ghana charged with more than $100 million in theft Netflix scammers target jobseekers to trick them into handing...

Romance scammers in Ghana charged with more than $100 million in theft

The Department of Justice DOJ extradited and indicted 4 Ghanaian nationals for allegedly stealing more than $100 million, mainly through romance scams and business email compromises. According to a report from Comparitech, nearly 59,000 Americans fell victim to romance scams in 2024, losing an...

Ghanaian Nationals Extradited to US Over $100M, BEC, Romance Scams

Three Ghanaian men have been extradited to the US over $100 million fraud involving romance scams and business…...

Corpse-eating selfies, and other ways to trick scammers (Lock and Code S06E14)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … There’s a unique counter response to romance scammers. Her name is Becky Holmes. Holmes, an expert and author on romance scams, has spent years responding to nearly every romance scammer who lands a message in her inbox. She told one scammer pretending to ...

5 riskiest places to get scammed online

Scammers love your smartphone. They can text you fraudulent tracking links for packages you never bought. They can profess their empty love to you across your social media apps. They can bombard your email inbox with phishing attempts, impersonate a family member through a phone call, and even...

U.S. Sanctions Funnull for $200M Romance Baiting Scams Tied to Crypto Fraud

The U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC has levied sanctions against a Philippines-based company named Funnull Technology Inc. and its administrator Liu Lizhi for providing infrastructure to conduct romance baiting scams that led to massive cryptocurrency losses. T...

Xinbi Telegram Market Tied to $8.4B in Crypto Crime, Romance Scams, North Korea Laundering

A Chinese-language, Telegram-based marketplace called Xinbi Guarantee has facilitated no less than $8.4 billion in transactions since 2022, making it the second major black market to be exposed after HuiOne Guarantee. According to a report published by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, merchant...

The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

Romance scams cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As people grow increasingly isolated, and generative AI helps scammers scale their crimes, the problem could get worse...

A week in security (September 23 – September 29)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Millions of Kia vehicles were vulnerable to remote attacks with just a license plate number Privacy watchdog files complaint over Firefox quietly enabling its Privacy Preserving Attribution Telegram will hand over user details to law enforcement Don’t share the vir...

Romance scams costlier than ever: 10 percent of victims lose $10,000 or more

Romance scams continue to plague users, but their costs have risen to staggering heights, according to a Malwarebytes survey carried out last month via our weekly newsletter. More than 66 percent of 850 respondents have been targeted by a romance scam, and those that were ensnared paid a hefty...

U.S. Sentences 31-Year-Old to 10 Years for Laundering $4.5M in Email Scams

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ has sentenced a 31-year-old man to 10 years in prison for laundering more than $4.5 million through business email compromise BEC schemes and romance scams. Malachi Mullings, 31, of Sandy Springs, Georgia pleaded guilty to the money laundering offenses in Januar...

The Real-Time Deepfake Romance Scams Have Arrived

Watch how smooth-talking scammers known as “Yahoo Boys” use widely available face-swapping tech to carry out elaborate romance scams...

“Pig butchering” is an evolution of a social engineering tactic we’ve seen for years

Whether you want to call them "catfishing," "pig butchering" or just good old-fashioned "social engineering," romance scams have been around forever. I was first introduced to them through the MTV show "Catfish," but recently they seem to be making headlines as the term "pig butchering" enters th...