Nigeria has been ranked 16th in FBI’s list of countries which are worst affected by internet crimes.
The State-specific statistics which can be found within the 2020 Internet Crime Report and in the accompanying 2020 State Reports, includes information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime, an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019. The reported losses also exceeded $4.2 billion.
Nigeria and South Africa were listed among the ‘worst’ 20. South Africa was rated sixth with 1,754 victims while Nigeria had 443 victims. Countries like Pakistan, China, Columbia, and Hong Kong ranked better than Nigeria.
The top 20 countries: 1. United Kingdom; 2. Canada; 3. India; 4. Greece; 5. Australia; 6. South Africa; 7. France; 8. Germany; 9. Mexico; 10. Belgium; 11. Brazil; Philippines; 13. Italy; 14. Spain; 15. Netherlands; 16. Nigeria; 17. Pakistan; 18. China; 19. Colombia; 20. Hong Kong .
Phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams and extortion were the top three crimes reported by victims in 2020, and it was also learnt that victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes, and investment fraud.
There was also the emergence of scams exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic. The IC3 received over 28,500 complaints related to COVID-19, with fraudsters targeting both businesses and individuals.
