Kane County Reporter

Illinois State Rep. Dan Ugaste (R) released a statement April 3 on Facebook regarding the FBI's 2022 Internet Crime Report.

"According to the FBI's 2022 Internet Crime Report, Illinois had the nation's fifth highest number of reported victims of cyber fraud last year," Ugaste said in a Facebook post.

And, according to FOX 2, Americans lost over $10 billion to cyber criminals in 2022.

“At the end of the day, all fraud boils down to this: it’s a lie to steal your money,” said David Nanz, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Springfield, Illinois Office, according to the FOX 2 report. “The fraud perpetrators are just growing their schemes.”

The report stated that business email compromise scams, which target businesses and individuals performing transfers of funds, were the costliest, with $83.3 million lost. Investment fraud losses accounted for over $75.6 million, and tech support scams accounted for approximately $31.4 million.

“A lot of these emails trying to defraud you emanate from overseas," Nanz told FOX 2. "You’ll oftentimes see typos in them because English is not the first language of the fraudster. All too often, we see investment fraud victims invest in something they don’t really have clarity into what it involves, and investing with someone who they don’t know, who they’ve done no due diligence with.”

Nanz added that protecting yourself from scams requires both vigilance and skepticism, the report stated.

“There are some simple ways to do this," he said, "which include simply calling the legitimate bank or federal government agency or whoever is purporting to actually be contacting you to confirm that the phone call or the text message or email you receive is legitimate.”