INVESTMENT FRAUD

US citizens lost a whopping $2.66 billion to various types of investment scams in the first three quarters of 2022, representing a

50% increase over $1.77 billion lost in 2021, says VPN provider Atlas VPN, quoting the most recent figures from the US Federal Trade Commission. Since 2018, investment fraud has been growing by, on average, 149% per year. Most fraud victims transfer funds in the form of cryptocurrencies, which are notoriously hard to track down and retrieve because the whole system is based on anonymity and decentralisation. In these cases, privacy granted by the blockchain system is working against the victims and in favour of criminals, Atlas VPN says.