FBI Reissues Alert on Impersonation Scams
FBI/IC3 warns of ongoing law enforcement and government impersonation fraud that cost victims over $1.6 billion between January 2025 and July 2026.
Sourceic3.gov — open the original
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The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has reissued a public service announcement updating a 2022 alert about widespread fraud schemes in which scammers impersonate US and foreign law enforcement or government officials to extort money or personally identifiable information from victims. Between January 2025 and July 2026, IC3 received nearly 61,000 complaints related to these scams, with reported losses exceeding $1.6 billion. Scammers primarily use unsolicited phone calls, but also employ text messages and emails, spoofing legitimate phone numbers, email addresses, employee names, and credentials of well-known agencies including IC3 itself. Common pretenses include accusing victims of crimes and threatening arrest, claiming missed jury duty or court dates, or asserting that a passport, driver's license, or professional license is expiring. Specific victim categories are also targeted, including medical practitioners (threatened with license revocation, $37M+ in losses) and members of foreign ethnic communities or international students threatened with extradition or passport cancellation ($140M+ in losses). Notably, the advisory flags that scammers are increasingly using AI-generated video to impersonate officials on video calls, adding a layer of perceived legitimacy to the scheme.
Payment is demanded via prepaid cards, couriers, bank wires, cryptocurrency, or cash deposited into cryptocurrency kiosks — all payment methods legitimate law enforcement agencies never use. This is a social-engineering/fraud advisory rather than a technical intrusion campaign; there are no IOCs, malware, or exploited vulnerabilities involved. Defenders in security-awareness and fraud-prevention roles should use this to update employee/customer training, particularly for organizations serving vulnerable populations (healthcare licensing bodies, international student services, ethnic community organizations) that are specifically named as targeted demographics. The FBI recommends verifying any law-enforcement contact independently via official public contact information, never providing PII or payment to unsolicited callers, and reporting incidents to IC3 and local financial institutions immediately.
Source reporting: https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2026/PSA260917
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