The scam specifically targets people whose money or information has been stolen in past incidents, with the scammers promising to help recover what had been lost before.

The criminals are impersonating the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, to cruelly scam victims who have previously been victims of crime, the April 18 FBI public service announcement said. Between December 2023 and February 2025, the FBI received more than 100 reports of IC3 impersonation scams, the warning said.

Scammers stole a record $16.6 billion in 2024, the FBI said on Wednesday. That marked a 33% increase from 2023, according to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center's annual report. More than a quarter million complaints reported money lost to a scam,