Indians made $10B in 2022 by scamming old Americans
Indians made $10B in 2022 by scamming old Americans. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) discovered that unlawful Indian-based call centre scammers and internet fraudsters stole more than $10 billion from Americans in 2020, particularly from senior individuals.
Details reveal that scams have become more prevalent and that in the past eleven months of this year, US residents have lost $10.2 billion as a result. From the $6.9 billion they lost the previous year, this year’s loss is up 47%.
The FBI has assigned a permanent representative at the US embassy in New Delhi who will cooperate with the Indian authorities to crack down on these gangs in response to an increase in Indian fraudsters taking money from old Americans.
Suhel Daud, the FBI’s South Asia regional director and legal attaché at the US embassy in New Delhi, discussed the problem and disclosed that these con artists defraud the elderly of billions of dollars while posing as tech help, love-related calls, business investors, etc.
The US doesn’t want India to suffer, he continued, adding that the problem might not be one of national security but rather of a country’s reputation.
Additionally, he claimed that tech support frauds have cost innocent Americans INR 92 billion and have climbed by 130% annually.
Suhel Daud pointed out that 0.78 million complaints were filed in the first eleven months of this year compared to 0.85 million in 2021 on the FBI’s complaint portal. He also revealed that the $10.2 billion is made up of $3 billion in investments, $2.4 billion in business emails, $1.2 billion in data breaches involving personal information, $1 billion in romance, $781 million in fraud involving technical support, and the remaining money in miscellaneous internet scams.
