The International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) has said a total of $442 billion is estimated to have been lost globally to financial fraud in 2025.
INTERPOL disclosed this in its March 2026 Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment report released on Monday.
The organisation described the risks as high based on its estimation, warning that financial crime perpetrators are now leveraging artificial intelligence.
What they are saying
INTERPOL stated that since 2024, the number of fraud-related Notices and Diffusions has increased by 54 per cent, with the majority issued by European member countries.
- “Over the same period, INTERPOL has supported member countries in more than 1,500 transnational fraud cases involving lost assets valued at USD 1.1 billion.
- “There are significant global and human costs due to financial fraud. Global losses related to financial fraud in 2025 alone have been estimated at USD 442 billion,” it stated.
INTERPOL assessed the overall global risk related to financial fraud as high and expects the scale of offending to escalate significantly over the next three to five years, mainly due to the increased availability of AI technology and low barriers to entry.
More insights
According to INTERPOL, fraud is increasingly enabled by artificial intelligence tools, stressing that dark web marketplaces offer applications that can clone voices and faces from mere seconds of genuine audio or video samples, enabling criminals to impersonate celebrities or associates of intended victims.
- “‘Agentic AI’ can autonomously plan and execute fraud campaigns from start to finish. INTERPOL reports a global surge in these AI-enhanced fraud schemes, notably sextortion intertwined with investment scams, as well as impersonation frauds, including fake kidnappings for ransom.
- “Criminal networks are cooperating globally and sharing expertise and technology. Criminal networks perpetrating fraud adapt their illicit business models to optimise efficiency, including through collaboration with specialised money-laundering networks. INTERPOL assesses these offenders as highly organized, skilled and agile,” it said.
African region
INTERPOL said there is an increasing nexus between financial fraud and terrorist financing across the African region.
- “Terrorist groups operating in the African region have been found to rely on fraud schemes for resource generation, especially via crypto-based scams,” the report read.
It added that reports from member countries in the African region indicate that financial fraud poses a high threat, saying this ranks among the top five crimes in the region alongside terrorism and illicit drug trafficking.
Further expanding the global scale of the crisis, INTERPOL highlighted national statistics which indicated that the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics reported that fraud accounted for 43 per cent of all estimated crime in 2025.
- “The City of London Police further highlighted a year-on-year rise of 33 per cent in losses linked to financial fraud, representing approximately USD 3.5 billion.
- “The United States has seen a steady increase in financial losses due to fraud, from nearly USD 4 billion in 2020 to USD 16.6 billion in 2024. In the Asia and Pacific region, the Singapore Police Force highlighted that, despite a decrease from 2024, financial fraud remained a major security concern, with losses estimated at approximately USD 721 million in 2025,” INTERPOL added.
What you should know
Nairametrics reported in February that an INTERPOL-supported cybercrime operation involving 16 African countries, including Nigeria and Kenya, led to the recovery of over $4.3 million and dismantled multiple transnational fraud networks.
- The disclosure was made in a statement published on the INTERPOL website on February 18, 2026.
- The operation, named Red Card 2.0, targeted high-yield investment scams, mobile money fraud, and fraudulent mobile loan applications, which had caused millions in losses across Africa and other regions.
During the eight-week campaign, authorities arrested 651 suspects, seized 2,341 devices, and dismantled 1,442 malicious IPs, domains, and servers, alongside other infrastructure linked to cybercrime. Investigators reported that the scams were responsible for financial losses exceeding $45 million, affecting 1,247 victims.
