The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received more than 69,000 complaints involving cryptocurrency fraud, representing a 45 percent increase in losses compared to the previous year, the Sept. 9 report said.

While these cryptocurrency-related complaints accounted for 10 percent of the total number of financial fraud complaints, they made up nearly half of all financial losses reported to the FBI.

“As the use of cryptocurrency in the global financial system continues to grow, so too does its use by criminal actors,” Michael Nordwall, assistant director for the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, said in the report.

According to the report, investment fraud was the most significant contributor to these losses, accounting for $3.96 billion, or 71 percent of all cryptocurrency-related losses.

The report cites investment fraud scammers who use social media platforms, dating apps, and networking sites to build trust with victims before convincing them to invest in fake cryptocurrency schemes.

These scams often involve showing victims fake profits to encourage further investments, but when the victims try to withdraw their funds, they are asked to pay additional fees or taxes, which they never recover.

Other forms of fraud, including tech support scams, government impersonation, and call center fraud, were also notable. Call center fraud represents approximately 10 percent of cryptocurrency-related losses.

An example of tech support scams is criminals impersonating customer support representatives and directing victims to pay for nonexistent services using cryptocurrency.

“The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency, the speed of irreversible transactions, and the ability to transfer value around the world make cryptocurrency an attractive vehicle for criminals while creating challenges to recover stolen funds,” Nordwall said. “Once an individual sends a payment, the recipient owns the cryptocurrency and often quickly transfers it into an account overseas for cash-out purposes.”

The rise in cryptocurrency scams has hit older Americans especially hard. While people over the age of 60 made up just 24 percent of the total complaints, they reported the highest financial losses, totaling $1.65 billion.

Younger generations were hit less hard, with those under 20 losing $14.7 million, followed by those in their 20s losing $168.5 million, those in their 30s losing $693.7 million, those in their 40s losing $843.8 million, and those in their 50s losing $901 million.

Some states were hit harder by scams than others. The top five states for cryptocurrency fraud losses were California ($1.15 billion), Texas ($411.9 million), Florida ($390.2 million), New York ($317.3 million), and New Jersey ($179.4 million).

The five least impacted were Vermont ($4.8 million), Maine ($5.9 million), North Dakota ($6.5 million), Wyoming ($7.3 million), and the District of Columbia ($8.3 million).

The report offers several tips for individuals to protect themselves from cryptocurrency scams. It emphasizes the importance of verifying the legitimacy of investment opportunities, especially when offered by people met online or through unsolicited contacts.

The FBI advises never to send cryptocurrency payments to individuals or companies without thoroughly researching them.

Additionally, people are urged to be cautious of companies claiming they can recover lost cryptocurrency, as many of these services charge up-front fees and may be fraudulent themselves.

The agency urges victims to file complaints with IC3, even if no financial loss occurred.

For further protection, victims should promptly report any suspicious activity to the IC3. The FBI emphasized the importance of timely and accurate reporting in helping law enforcement track and recover lost funds.

The television commercials that promote RFID technology that allows us to pay just by tapping a card are designed to make us feel warm and fuzzy about this new method of conducting transactions, but it turns out that this technology is not nearly as secure as most of us thought.

The industry insists that cards with these new chips can only be detected four inches away from the terminal, but there have been numerous cases where cards are literally being charged “from across the room”…

Panicked shoppers claim they have been charged for purchases while their credit cards were still in their pockets after in-store tap-to-pay systems read them from across the room.

Several customers have raised the alarm about the glitch which is said to have occurred across stores, restaurants and even a doctor’s office.

One woman said she was at least ‘two feet away’ from the reader when it managed to scan her card information and process a payment.

The local ABC News affiliate in San Francisco interviewed one victim named Edgar Mathews who says that he was billed for his groceries without ever pulling a card out of his wallet…

Mathews was trying to use his debit card to pay for groceries at Safeway — but that never happened.

“I hadn’t tapped it, I hadn’t inserted it, I hadn’t swiped it… and then all of a sudden, out comes a receipt. And I said, ‘How did this get paid for?’” said Mathews.

The cashier couldn’t explain it.

According to the industry, this should never happen. When Mathews checked his accounts, he discovered that the terminal at Safeway had actually charged a Bank of America credit card that was in his back pocket…

Mathews checked his bank accounts. Turns out, the “tap-to-pay” card reader at Safeway had ignored the debit card in his hand. Instead, it reached into Mathews’s back pocket, through his wallet and charged his Bank of America credit card tucked inside!

The news outlet also interviewed another local resident named Sonya Cesari.

According to her, a tap-to-pay terminal at one store actually read three credit cards that were “tucked in a wallet inside her purse”…

“Three days later at a boutique in Yountville,” said Cesari. She got an even bigger surprise at a little shop.

“The woman said, ‘Oh my, it’s just read three cards,’” said Cesari.

The store’s “tap-to-pay” system charged not only one, but three credit cards tucked in a wallet inside her purse.

Unfortunately, this is a problem that is not going to go away any time soon.

More tap-to-pay terminals are being put in with each passing day, and more tap-to-pay cards are constantly being issued.

So people are going to continue to be charged by mistake.

In some cases victims are actually being charged for goods that someone else is trying to purchase.  Just check out the following example which was recently posted on Facebook…

Of course this sort of technology is going to make it even easier for hackers and scammers to steal from the general population.

Credit cards and debit cards are both extremely vulnerable, and criminals have a variety of methods that they can use to extract the information that they need…

Have you ever thought about how woefully insecure credit and debit cards are? Try this experiment: Plug a USB magnetic strip reader into a computer, open a word processor, swipe a credit card, and boom—you just stole your own card information. It’s that easy.

Now consider that the same technology comes in faster and smaller forms. Tiny “skimmers” can be attached to ATMs and payment terminals to pilfer your data from the card’s magnetic strip (called a “magstripe”). Even smaller “shimmers” are shimmed into card readers to attack the chips on newer cards. There’s now also a digital version called e-skimming, pilfering data from payment websites.

So what can we do to protect ourselves?

There are sleeves that you can get to protect your cards, and there are entire wallets that are designed to block RFID signals.

And it is imperative to always be diligent.

It has been said that “complacency is a killer”, and that is so true.

Try to avoid using ATM machines as much as possible, and if you are making payment at a gas station or some other highly vulnerable location always look for signs that something is out of place.

But no matter how hard you try, the truth is that credit cards and debit cards are never going to be 100 percent safe.

In 2022, credit card fraud surpassed the 34 billion dollar mark…

Credit and debit card fraud losses reached a record $34.36 billion in 2022 after increasing roughly 5% from the previous year.

The final number for 2023 will inevitably be even higher.

We live at a time when theft of all types is on the rise, and it will be even worse during the period of great societal chaos that is directly ahead of us.

2024 is going to be such a crazy year, and as conditions deteriorate people around us are going to become even more desperate.

So always watch your back, and always be diligent. Predators are constantly on the prowl, and you do not want to be the next victim.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

A new report from Bloomberg tells the story of Peter Doelger, who by the age of 78 was worth around $50 million. Doelger built his own company, sold it to a conglomerate and successfully bet the proceeds on stocks and oil.

Doelger is doing well financially but not mentally. His family says he started to show signs of dementia around the time he made his fortune, and after signing it all over to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to manage, Doelger’s holdings dwindled in value all the way down to around $1.5 million.

The family’s claim is that Doelger’s fortune was mismanaged by JPMorgan without his knowledge. Financial experts at the banking giant were supposed to keep Doelger’s money and holdings intact and growing, but instead they allegedly whittled it down to just about nothing.

In the end, Doelger and his family had to sell their Boston condominium and move in with relatives since his fortune is now a thing of the past. And apparently this kind of thing is happening more and more as wealthy baby boomers on the verge of dementia get taken advantage of by the corrupt financial system.

“We had 100 percent trust in them that they will manage our assets,” stated Peter’s wife Yoon about Doelger’s relationship with JPMorgan. “We didn’t expect them to make us a fortune but at least make us comfortable.”

(Related: Learn more about how to protect against Alzheimer’s and dementia with these five foods.)

Wall Street, a den of vipers

The Doelgers are now fighting it out legally in Boston federal court to try to hold JPMorgan accountable for letting a wealthy client sliding into dementia to lose almost his entire fortune at the company’s hands. The Doelgers’ hope is that JPMorgan will eventually be forced to pay out at least some of what was lost.

Peter, who is now 86, can barely even remember what happened leading up to this point. In an interview, he attempted to tell the story of how he built his business, but got lost in the conversation trying to explain what happened after that, including his relationship with JPMorgan.

A court-ordered exam declared Peter unable to testify in the litigation, and both sides of the case have agreed not to contest this ruling.

“The couple’s situation spotlights an issue that has always lurked on Wall Street but is surging in scale as the baby boom generation retires with a record stockpile of wealth,” Bloomberg reports.

“Legions of boomers have enough saved to be deemed ‘accredited’ or ‘sophisticated’ investors under U.S. securities laws, qualifying them to buy into riskier, complex asset classes with juicy commissions for intermediaries. Yet many of those clients will inevitably face cognitive decline. The industry lacks a formal system to detect when that happens.”

A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) study on financial sophistication found that households of accredited investors who are at least 80 years in age typically score far worse on competency tests than unaccredited investors a few decades younger.

“This case screams out for more attention to how waning cognitive abilities affect older people’s capacity for financial decision-making and independent financial management,” commented Naomi Karp, a consultant on aging, law and policy who worked as an analyst for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about the Doelger case.

“We need to put more responsibility on financial firms since they are well-positioned to detect warning signs.”

More related news coverage can be found at Collapse.news.

Sources for this article include:

• Bloomberg.com
• NaturalNews.com
• SEC.gov

Over the last year, Joe Biden and the Democrats have pushed through well over $50 billion in funding for Ukraine, using US taxpayer money. Internationally, over $100 billion has been donated to Ukraine, according to Devex.com which has compiled worldwide donations and grants to the Ukrainian cause.

FTX simultaneously processed donations to Ukraine by using its crypto infrastructure. As CoinDesk.com reported in May of this year, “Ukraine Partners With FTX, Everstake to Launch New Crypto Donation Website.”

In other words, the corrupt Ukraine regime partnered with a corrupt crypto slush fund to take dollars from the corrupt US government and funnel them into the hands of corrupt Democrat candidates to win rigged mid-term elections.

According to data published by OpenSecrets.org, Sam Bankman-Fried donated nearly $40 million to political candidates in the 2022 mid-term elections. Only $235,200 went to Republicans, with the rest going to Democrats. FTX, in other words, was a Democrat slush fund money laundering operation that helped Democrats win mid-term elections (on top of their obvious cheating, ballot stuffing and ballot harvesting operations).

It begs the obvious question: Which Democrats took this dirty money from FTX, which had stolen the money from its own customers? We know that Fetterman received substantial financial support from FTX, for example.

As CoinDesk.com reports:

“Aid for Ukraine,” which has the backing of crypto exchange FTX, staking platform Everstake and Ukraine’s Kuna exchange, will route donated crypto to the National Bank of Ukraine, Everstake’s Head of Growth Vlad Likhuta told CoinDesk. Ukraine’s crypto-savvy Ministry of Digital Transformation is also involved.

The country’s collective efforts have already raised some $48 million in bitcoin (BTC), DOT, ether (ETH), SOL, tether (USDT) and other cryptocurrencies, according to the website. Other estimates place the amount closer to $100 million, but totals vary with market swings and exactly which websites are included.

Put another way, if you donated money to “Ukraine” via this mechanism, you actually donated to Democrats in a rigged election funded by illegal campaign contributions laundered through FTX (which is increasingly emerging as the crypto hub run by people with globalist ties).

Here’s the propaganda pushed by the Ukraine regime to help narrate the cover story for all this:

The central bank is using donations to support “humanitarian aid programs” as well as Ukraine’s armed forces, according to the website. “The people will continue their fight for freedom, but they need more ammunition and necessities,” the website read.

We don’t know how much of these funds actually went to Ukraine, but we know Sam Bankman-Fried was one of the largest donors of cash to Democrat candidates in the 2022 mid-term elections (nearly $40 million, as shown above).

Massive “self-hack” has drained another nearly $1 billion from FTX accounts

Late last night, the FTX app was auto-updated and transformed into a Trojan Horse app that logged into user accounts and stole their money. We covered this in a previous story on NewsTarget.com. So far today, we know that around $1 billion in remaining funds has been looted from FTX. This is widely believed to be a “self-hack” of FTX by its founders or insiders who are attempting to take the money and run, Mt. Gox style.

As CoinDesk.com reported today:

More than $600 million was siphoned from FTX’s crypto wallets late Friday. Soon after, FTX stated in its official Telegram channel that it had been compromised, instructing users not to install any new upgrades and to delete all FTX apps.

“FTX has been hacked. FTX apps are malware. Delete them. Chat is open. Don’t go on FTX site as it might download Trojans,” wrote an account administrator in the FTX Support Telegram chat. The message was pinned by FTX General Counsel Ryne Miller.

In essence, now after having built the world’s largest crypto slush fund to try to keep corrupt Democrats in power, somebody with inside access at FTX is apparently looting the last billion dollars worth of assets at the company.

CNBC also reports that Sam Bankman-Fried had a secret “back door” into the financial accounting system that allowed him to “transfer billions” without any regulatory scrutiny whatsoever. From CNBC.com:

Between $1 billion and $2 billion of FTX customer funds have disappeared, SBF had a secret ‘back door’ to transfer billions: Report

As Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX enters bankruptcy protection, Reuters reports that between $1 billion to $2 billion of customer funds have vanished from the failed crypto exchange.

Both Reuters and The Wall Street Journal found that Bankman-Fried, now the ex-CEO of FTX, transferred $10 billion of customer funds from his crypto exchange to the digital asset trading house, Alameda Research.

This story just went full John McAfee, in other words, and it’s not even over.

Note that FTX had huge holdings in Robinhood (HOOD symbol on Wall Street), and we are anticipating total market chaos for HOOD come Monday morning.

Bitcoin, interestingly, is weathering this storm relatively well after having fallen from the $21K range to around $16K in the chaos. Bitcoin’s exposure to FTX fallout may be limited, although Bitcoin and all other cryptos are almost certain to face heavy-handed regulatory scrutiny after this fiasco fully unravels.

Get more details in today’s Situation Update podcast:

• FTX was a massive digital SLUSH FUND for Democrats
• Money was created out of nothing via FTT (tokens), then sold off to victims of the scam
• Millions went to Fetterman and other Dems to sway mid-term elections
• Sam Bankman-Fried had pledged $1 billion to Dems by 2024
• Globalist media outlets like Reuters and Forbes then attacked rival Binance
• Binance CEO CZ needed just two tweets to bring down the FTX fraud
• Binance is more libertarian and wants to coexist on Twitter with Elon Musk and free speech
• Binance doesn’t pilfer user deposits / funds and make crazy bets (like FTX did)
• We are watching the collapse of dollar hegemony
• BRICS+ nations will shortly launch a new global reserve currency backed by commodities
• Hubs like Binance will likely allow Americans to buy BRICS+ currencies via stablecoins
• This would give Americans a way to SAVE money without losing to dollar devaluation
• The future of world trade will rest on honest money, backed by real commodities
• Brighteon: Brighteon.com/c847cd3e-8b71-40c0-97d9-c1e78a4ff342
• Rumble: Rumble.com/v1tu8ru-situation-update-nov-12-2022-the-fall-of-the-crypto-cabal-and-the-rise-of-h.html
• Bitchute: Bitchute.com/video/gp12siQZS9rt/
• Banned.Video: Banned.video/watch?id=636f86e75f1c9c316db61ad2
• Libsyn: Healthrangerreport.com/situation-update-nov-12-2022-the-fall-of-the-crypto-cabal-and-the-rise-of-honest-money

Follow more news on crypto crimes at Bitraped.com

Discover more interviews and podcasts each day at: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/HRreport

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About the Author

Mike Adams (aka the “Health Ranger“) is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com called “Food Forensics“), an environmental scientist, a patent holder for a cesium radioactive isotope elimination invention, a multiple award winner for outstanding journalism, a science news publisher and influential commentator on topics ranging from science and medicine to culture and politics. Follow his videos, podcasts, websites and science projects at the links below.

Mike Adams serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation. He has also achieved numerous laboratory breakthroughs in the programming of automated liquid handling robots for sample preparation and external standards prep.

The U.S. patent office has awarded Mike Adams patent NO. US 9526751 B2 for the invention of “Cesium Eliminator,” a lifesaving invention that removes up to 95% of radioactive cesium from the human digestive tract. Adams has pledged to donate full patent licensing rights to any state or national government that needs to manufacture the product to save human lives in the aftermath of a nuclear accident, disaster, act of war or act of terrorism. He has also stockpiled 10,000 kg of raw material to manufacture Cesium Eliminator in a Texas warehouse, and plans to donate the finished product to help save lives in Texas when the next nuclear event occurs. No independent scientist in the world has done more research on the removal of radioactive elements from the human digestive tract.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and American Indians. He is of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his “Health Ranger” passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the author of the world’s first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed “strange fibers” found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health “gurus,” dangerous “detox” products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over fifteen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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