Online Scam Victims Lose More Than the Value of the Cocaine Trade, and AI Is Making Scams Cheaper Than Ever

Scammers used to need a guarded compound with hundreds of workers in Southeast Asia. Today a few computers, an internet connection and cheaply bought digital tools are enough. Artificial intelligence has made online scams faster, cheaper and simpler than ever - and the industry has grown so much that, by some estimates, victims' losses exceed the value of the global cocaine trade.

According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, victims in 42 countries lost 442 billion dollars last year. Those are estimated victim losses, not measured criminal earnings. In the same survey, 57 percent of adults said they had been targeted by a scam attempt. In the US, reported losses from internet crime jumped from 17.8 million dollars in 2001 to almost 21 billion dollars last year.

Scams on subscription

The reason is simple: crime has become a service. On illegal platforms, scam tools cost from 500 dollars a month. Sending messages to 10,000 email addresses costs one dollar, and basic tools for stealing data through fake pages cost less than 100 dollars. On sale are stolen personal data, fake profiles, ready-made pages, AI tools for fake photos and videos, and even money laundering.

One of the biggest such markets, the Chinese-language platform Xinbi Guarantee, processed transactions worth about 24 billion dollars, until US authorities seized its Telegram channels and crypto wallets in September.

The American cybersecurity company ZeroFox found, across nine analyzed development platforms, more than a fourfold increase in fake pages on free tiers over two years - to 10,600. Banks, retailers and telecom companies are copied most often, and Facebook and Netflix are among the most copied brands. "AI code generators today allow someone who can't program at all to build a convincing fake bank login page in minutes and start harvesting data before anyone notices," the analysis says.

From Cambodia to Albania

Under pressure from the US and China, Cambodia launched a major campaign last year to shut down scam centers, after which about 250,000 foreigners left. The remaining groups now work out of restaurants, hotel rooms and even cars. "Even two people, a man and a woman, can run a scam," says the governor of Preah Sihanouk province. The networks are spreading into Africa and Sri Lanka, and similar operations have been uncovered in Dubai, Ukraine - and Albania, a few hours' drive from Skopje.

Behind much of the industry is human trafficking. According to Interpol, citizens of 89 countries have been recorded among the people in scam centers - more than a fivefold increase compared with early 2023. Many are lured with promises of well-paid work and then forced to scam others.

Meta confirmed that since last year it has removed more than 16 million accounts linked to scam centers and 65 million scam ads. "We block their accounts, and they open new ones. We block the devices they use, and they get others," admits Nathaniel Gleicher, who is in charge of fighting scams at Meta.

The scariest number is the speed

Classic romance and investment scams used to take weeks or months of messaging. Today almost two-thirds of scammed victims send money within 24 hours of first contact. While police spend one investigation going through several countries, banks and tech companies, the scammers change pages, accounts and wallets within hours. How many of us would recognize a fake page of our own bank, built in a few minutes?