Last year last year, Missicious Actors stolen around $ 9.9 billion from the crypto ecosystem – the lowest amount since 2021, according to a recent Chain salysis report.
The company added that the figure is expected to rise to $ 12.4 billion as more fraudulent addresses are identified.
Moreover, the report warned that AI-driven fraud techniques and the professionalization of the scam ecosystem cause illegal activity to unprecedented levels.
AI Supercharging Crypto -Fraud
Generative AI has considerably reduced the barriers for scammers, allowing them to create fascinating synthetic identities, fake investment schemes and deep -footed scam.
The report showed that 85% of the scams include fully verified accounts that bypass the traditional identity verification.
Elad Fouks, head of fraud products in chainalysis, said:
“Genai reinforces scam by detecting more fraud, more cost -effective and more difficult. This allows criminals to occur as real users, fake content generate and orchestrate extensive investment mushrooms. “
The Huione guarantee platform, a peer-to-peer black-market hub, has become an important factor of AI-driven scam. It offers illegal services such as AI-generated identities, deepfake speech technology and synthetic verification tools.
Data on the chain shows a pattern in which payments to the AI-Software suppliers of Huione only see a few days before large pig-separation spicors Spijkers Spike Spike in the intake. This indicates that fraudsters reinvest illegal profits in AI tools to feed future schemes.
The rise of pig separation and Hyis
Under various fraudulent regulations, high-yield investment scam (HYIS) and pig separation solution were good for most illegal crypto flows, where they received 50.2% and 33.2% of the SCAM income respectively.
While the influx of Hyis schemes fell 36.6% on an annual basis, pig separation of scam increased by almost 40%, as a result of a growing trend of romance and investment fraud aimed at unsuspecting victims. These operations, often from large scam connections in Southeast Asia, have been expanded worldwide.
Butching of pigs is a scam method that attracts victims to invest in a fake crypto schedule. The bad actors convince the unsuspecting investor to gradually allocate more money to fake promises and then steal the amount.
In December 2024, the Nigerian authorities arrested 48 Chinese and 40 Filipino nationals for running a crypto -investment cam aimed at victims in Europe and America.
Meanwhile, Interpol disturbed global scam networks, including an operation in Namibia, where 88 traded young people were forced into crypto fraud in June 2024.
Scam evolves
In addition, fraudsters have diversified their methods, shifted from long-term investment scam to rapidly affected job fraud, in which victims unconsciously send crypto deposits as reimbursements.
Eric Heintz, global analyst at International Justice Mission (IJM), said:
“This scam is particularly treacherous because they hunt for job seekers, especially those who are desperately looking for work.”
While scammers refine their techniques, Huione is expanding his financial infrastructure. In 2024, the platform launched a blockchain project called Xone and a stablecoin called USDH, which was designed to avoid supervision of regulatory supervision and the attacks of assets.
Authorities are now racing to contain the growing fraud epidemic. While Interpol and Financial Watchdogs have intensified enforcement, the refinement of scams – and their dependence on AI – can successively be that traditional regulatory instruments are insufficient.