Fraud scams and bank fraud schemes resulted in $485.6 billion in losses globally last year, according to Nasdaq’s 2024 Global Financial Crime Report released this week. Scams caused $151.1 billion in losses in the Americas, with payments fraud accounting for $102.6 billion of that figure. However, check fraud resulted in $21 billion in losses in the Americas, representing 80% of check fraud losses worldwide in 2023 and driven by fraud in the U.S., according to the report’s authors.
Cyber-enabled scams, including business email compromise, led to $10 billion in losses globally, according to the report. Romance scams and other confidence schemes resulted in nearly $4 billion in losses. Fraud against elderly victims caused $80 billion in losses.
Nasdaq also estimated that $3.1 trillion in illicit funds flowed through the global financial system last year. Drug trafficking accounted for $782.9 billion of that activity, human trafficking accounted for $346.7 billion and terrorist financing $5.1 billion.
