Lost to scams worldwide in 2026
Live estimateAn estimated 369 billion US dollars lost to scams worldwide so far in 2026.
97 reports, page 4 of 5
FrankCorporate
Case file from public records
Frank was a start-up with an online tool that helped students apply for US federal student aid. In 2021 founder Charlie Javice told two banks, including JPMorgan Chase, that Frank had 4.25 million users; it had about 300,000. When JPMorgan asked for proof, Javice hired an outs…
Amazon.com, Inc.Billing
Case file from public records
The US Federal Trade Commission alleged that Amazon used deceptive sign-up screens to enroll customers in Prime without their consent and made the subscription hard to cancel. On 25 September 2025, three days into the trial in Seattle, Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion: a $1 b…
Mt. GoxCrypto
Case file from public records
Mt. Gox, a Tokyo bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2014 after saying it had lost nearly all of the 850,000 bitcoins it held, 750,000 of them belonging to customers. The coins were worth about $500 million at the time. In March 2014 it said it had fo…
Philips RespironicsProducts
Case file from public records
In June 2021 Philips Respironics recalled CPAP and BiPAP sleep apnea machines and ventilators because their sound-reducing foam could break down and particles or chemicals could be inhaled or swallowed. The FDA said 15 million devices were affected worldwide. In September 2023…
QuadrigaCXCrypto
Case file from public records
QuadrigaCX, a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, announced in January 2019 that its co-founder and chief executive, Gerald Cotten, had died in India the month before. Within weeks it stopped operating and sought creditor protection, saying it could not access customers' funds.…
ThodexCrypto
Case file from public records
Thodex, a Turkish cryptocurrency exchange, suspended trading in April 2021 and its website went dark, locking hundreds of thousands of investors out of their accounts. Local media reported that its founder, Faruk Fatih Özer, had flown abroad. Prosecutors charged 21 people and…
PlusTokenCrypto
Case file from public records
PlusToken, launched in China in 2018, promised members daily payouts from a crypto arbitrage trading platform that did not exist. A Chinese court found it was a pyramid scheme that drew in more than 2.6 million members across 3,293 layers and, between 2018 and June 2019, took…
BitfinexCrypto
Case file from public records
In August 2016 a hacker broke into the Bitfinex exchange and, through more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions, moved 119,754 bitcoin, then worth about $71 million, to a wallet he controlled. In February 2022 US authorities arrested New York couple Ilya Lichtenstein and Heath…
SafeMoonCrypto
Case file from public records
SafeMoon was a crypto token launched in March 2021 that charged a 10% fee on every trade, half of it sent to liquidity pools that investors were told were locked. Its market value rose above $5.7 billion within weeks. The SEC alleged that large parts of the pool were never loc…
ForsageCrypto
Case file from public records
Forsage, launched in January 2020, presented itself as a decentralized investment platform run by smart contracts on the Ethereum, Tron and BNB Smart Chain blockchains. US authorities allege it was a Ponzi and pyramid scheme in which investors profited by recruiting others and…
HyperVerse (HyperFund)Crypto
Case file from public records
HyperFund, also marketed as HyperVerse and HyperTech, sold online "memberships" from June 2020 that promised daily rewards of 0.5% to 1% until an investor's money doubled or tripled. It claimed the rewards came from large-scale crypto mining, but US prosecutors say it had no s…
WorldComCorporate
Case file from public records
WorldCom, a US telecommunications company, revealed in June 2002 that an internal audit had found $3.8 billion in accounting errors. Much of the fraud involved booking expenses as long-term capital spending, and the misstatements eventually reached $11 billion. WorldCom filed…
Luckin CoffeeCorporate
Case file from public records
Luckin Coffee, a Chinese coffee chain listed on Nasdaq in May 2019, said on 2 April 2020 that its chief operating officer and staff reporting to him had fabricated about 2.2 billion yuan ($310 million) of 2019 sales. Its shares lost more than three-quarters of their value that…
Archegos Capital ManagementCorporate
Case file from public records
Archegos Capital Management was the family office of investor Bill Hwang and once managed about $36 billion. Prosecutors showed that from 2020 Hwang used it to manipulate a handful of stocks, including ViacomCBS and Discovery, while he and finance chief Patrick Halligan lied t…
Epic Games, Inc.Billing
Case file from public records
Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, agreed in December 2022 to pay $520 million to settle two US Federal Trade Commission cases. The FTC alleged that Epic collected personal information from children under 13 without parental consent, turned on voice and text chat by default an…
The Western Union CompanyBanks
Case file from public records
Western Union admitted that from 2004 to 2012 it processed hundreds of thousands of transactions tied to scams in which fraudsters posed as relatives in need or promised prizes or jobs. Some of its agents processed the payments in return for a cut, and the company failed to ac…
Equifax Inc.Data breach
Case file from public records
In September 2017 Equifax disclosed a breach that exposed personal data on about 147 million people, including 145.5 million Social Security numbers. The FTC said the company had failed to patch a critical vulnerability it was alerted to in March 2017. In 2020 the US Justice D…
Ahmedabad call center networkImpersonation
Case file from public records
Call centers in Ahmedabad, India, phoned people across the US posing as officials from the IRS and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, threatening arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation unless they paid supposed debts. US-based co-conspirators laundered the money thro…
Ramon Olorunwa Abbas (Ray Hushpuppi)Phishing
Case file from public records
Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, a Nigerian Instagram influencer known as "Ray Hushpuppi," conspired to launder money from business email compromise scams, bank cyber-heists and other online frauds. His schemes included laundering funds stolen from a bank in Malta in 2019, tricking a New…
1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)Government
Case file from public records
1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was a state fund that Najib Razak set up shortly after becoming Malaysia's prime minister in 2009. The US Justice Department says senior 1MDB officials, their associates and Jho Low misappropriated more than $4.5 billion from it between 2009…