Going by the recent statistics released the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported losses from Internet fraud in 2009 witnessed a more than twofold increase over 2008 figures – from $264.6 million to $559.7 million.

The Friday-released report by the IC3, which is a tie-up between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, also revealed that the number of complaints pertaining to cyber fraud increased from 275,28422 in 2008 to
336,655 in 2009; thereby marking a 22.3 percent year-on-year increase.

Noting that the most frequently reported Internet swindling cases were connected to the illegal use of FBI’s name, trapping unsuspecting victims into handing over either cash or sensitive information, the IC3 report disclosed that FBI -themed scams comprised almost 16.6 percent of the total complaints last year.

The other Internet scams that were frequently complained about included - the non-shipment of merchandise or payments; money upfront or advance-fee frauds; identity thefts, and phony antivirus software.

According to the report, the US by far topped the list of alleged fraudsters, with as many as 65.4 percent fraudsters supposedly in the country; followed by 9.9 percent fraudsters in Great Britain; 8 percent in Nigeria; and 2.6 percent in Canada.