A Basic History of Modern Scams
From AOL to Global Scam Centers
How Online Fraud Became a Global Industry
In the early 1990s, online fraud reached people through email and chat rooms on services such as America Online. As more people used the internet, criminals followed them to dating websites, social media, and messaging apps. Each new service gave scammers another way to approach people and gain their trust. Today, organized criminal groups can run thousands of conversations at once, using fake profiles, prepared scripts, and websites built to collect money. Some use artificial intelligence to imitate voices and faces.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received about 453,000 complaints involving cyber-enabled fraud in 2025, with more than $17.7 billion in reported losses; however, is it estimated by the Gallup Organization that there were 22 million new victims in 2023. That being the case, that means that only 2% of victims are reporting these crimes. Those numbers describe what people reported to one agency in one year. Behind each complaint is a person or business dealing with the consequences. If you lost money to a scam, you may also be dealing with the loss of a relationship you believed was real, the fear of telling your family, or the challenge of trusting your own judgment again.
To find out what the real cost of a scam is, visit our free Scam Cost Calculator.
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| Reports | |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 1,294,094 |
| 2017 | 1,138,306 |
| 2018 | 1,427,563 |
| 2019 | 1,697,934 |
| 2020 | 2,184,531 |
| 2021 | 2,789,161 |
| 2022 | 2,369,527 |
| 2023 | 2,566,261 |
| 2024 | 2,600,678 |
| 2025 | 3,000,000 |
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| Series 1 | |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 744,536,010 |
| 2017 | 904,689,044 |
| 2018 | 1,484,650,267 |
| 2019 | 1,901,064,357 |
| 2020 | 3,305,412,862 |
| 2021 | 5,893,260,382 |
| 2022 | 8,767,366,822 |
| 2023 | 10,021,305,005 |
| 2024 | 12,537,194,708 |
| 2024 | 15,900,000,000 |
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What Changed During and After the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of large scam centers. People spent more time online, and many lost work. In parts of Southeast Asia, organized crime groups used casino properties that had closed during the pandemic to expand online scam operations. Traffickers used fake job offers to recruit people, moved them into compounds, and forced some of them to commit fraud. The model kept spreading after restrictions were lifted.
Southeast Asia remains a major hub, but the operations now extend far beyond it. In November 2026, the Financial Action Task Force reported scam compounds or related activity across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Some groups work from large, guarded compounds. Others use smaller offices or rented houses and can move quickly. Recruiters, website operators, and the people who move and hide stolen money can work from different countries. INTERPOL reported in 2026 that people from nearly 80 countries had been trafficked into online scam centers.
These operations can harm people on both sides of a message. A person who answers a fake job advertisement can end up trapped and forced to deceive others. A person who receives one of those messages can lose savings and suffer the shock of discovering that a trusted relationship was part of a crime. The people who organize and profit from the operation are responsible for the harm it causes.
How “Pig Butchering” Scams Build Trust
One of the schemes that expanded during the pandemic is the relationship-based investment scam often called “pig butchering.” It may begin with a message on a dating app, a social media contact, or a text that looks as though it went to the wrong number. The person who contacts you takes time to build a friendship or romantic relationship. Once you trust them, they introduce an investment, often involving cryptocurrency, and offer to show you how it works.
A fake investment site can show your balance rising. The criminals may even let you withdraw a small amount so you have a reason to believe the money is there. When you try to take out a larger amount, they may freeze the account and demand a tax or fee. By then, the relationship, the website, and the apparent success of the investment all support the same story. The criminals built those pieces to make the next request seem reasonable. Understanding how they worked together can help you make sense of why the scam was convincing at the time.
Why These Crimes Are So Hard to Stop
You can receive a message at home from someone working abroad, send money through a service in another country, and see that money moved through several accounts before you know a crime has taken place. Investigators then have to obtain records and coordinate with agencies and companies in different places. Corruption, weak oversight, and networks that hide the source of stolen money help some operations continue. INTERPOL has also documented cases in which proceeds from fraud were suspected of helping finance terrorism.
Police agencies are taking action. In 2026, an INTERPOL-coordinated operation involving 97 countries and territories led to more than 5,800 arrests and the interception of $293 million in illicit assets. In a separate action, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that its Scam Center Strike Force had seized 503 fake investment websites. These operations show what agencies can do when they share information and act together. A person reporting a scam still faces a more immediate question: who will help them deal with what happened while the authorities decide what they can pursue?
Why SCARS Was Created
Many volunteer anti-scam groups formed around the work of exposing and cataloging fake profiles. Some gave victims useful information and a community where they could talk openly. We saw the limits of that work. A profile could disappear while the people running the scam carried on under another name. Prevention education often reached people only after they had been harmed. And survivors who needed informed support sometimes found themselves taking advice from people with no training in trauma or recovery.
Our founders drew inspiration from organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which brought people affected by a crime together to support victims and advocate for change. We wanted an organization that could bring together people already doing anti-scam work, speak collectively to government and industry, and give victims somewhere to turn after the crime. That purpose led to the creation of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams, now operating as the SCARS Institute.
What SCARS Works to Change
We bring victims’ experiences into conversations with governments, law enforcement, and industry. We work to develop ethical standards for anti-scam activity, including how organizations collect, report, and share information. Through our projects, we have worked to make scam reports easier to collect and share. We also work to reach people with prevention education before they encounter a scam, when knowing how criminals build trust can help them recognize what is happening.
If you have been scammed, you will need help understanding the deception, preparing to report it, or finding words to tell someone you trust. You may also need help working through grief, shame, self-blame, and damaged trust. The SCARS Institute offers structured recovery education, supportive guidance, peer-support resources, and referrals when additional care is needed. An investigation can take time, and your recovery can begin while it is still underway.
The people who run scam centers rely on cooperation across borders. The response also requires cooperation. Authorities need information they can act on, the public needs education before a criminal approaches, and victims need sustained support after the scam ends. Those are the reasons we created SCARS, and the spread of scam centers has made that work more urgent.
