Alarming FMA data

Almost twice as many cases of crypto fraud this year

There was an increase in cryptocurrency fraud from 244 to 409 cases.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

According to the Financial Market Authority (FMA), financial fraud is a "growth industry": the total loss due to financial fraud reported to the FMA in 2024 was around 15.5 million euros, compared to 12.8 million euros last year, the authority said on Monday. The number of crypto fraud cases almost doubled.

According to the FMA, there was even an increase from 244 to 409 cases. A total of 840 people reported to the authority's consumer hotline in 2024 - the highest reported loss by a private individual amounted to 996,109 euros.

The FMA's warnings against persons and companies that are not permitted to offer and conduct financial services and transactions requiring a license also reached a record level in 2024. The warnings are published on the FMA website and the electronic announcement and information platform of the federal government (EVI).

There were a total of 145 investor warnings this year - compared to 84 in 2022 and 106 in 2023. In 2024, most of the warnings concerned "fraudulent trading platforms offering services in connection with financial products (...)".

More and more financial fraud through deepfakes
The number of financial frauds is increasing, partly because fraudsters are among the first to "take up new technologies and exploit them for illegal purposes".

In 2024, there was also an increase in so-called "celebrity scams", where fraud victims are contacted via social networks using deepfake postings with celebrities who have allegedly become rich with secret investments. "Even if their methods are modern, the stories they use to seduce their victims are always the same. High profit with low risk, secret investment tricks that the banks won't reveal," said FMA Executive Directors Helmut Ettl and Eduard Müller in the press release.