The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has released its annual report, listing Nigeria and South Africa amongst worst 20 countries affected by Internet Crimes.

According to the report, Nigeria is ranked 16th worst affected country.

Other countries that ranked better than Nigeria are Pakistan, China, Columbia, and Hong Kong.

Apart from Nigeria, South Africa was also listed among the ‘worst’ 20. South Africa rated sixth with 1,754 victims while Nigeria had 443 victims.

The 2020 Internet Crime Report includes information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime—an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019—and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion.

State-specific statistics have also been released and can be found within the 2020 Internet Crime Report and in the accompanying 2020 State Reports.

The top three crimes reported by victims in 2020 were phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams, and extortion. Victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes, and investment fraud.

Notably, 2020 saw 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.

With the release of the 2020 Internet Crime Report, the FBI noted that it wants to remind the public to immediately report suspected criminal internet activity to the IC3 at ic3.gov.

By reporting internet crime, victims are not only alerting law enforcement to the activity but aiding in the overall fight against cybercrime.

Infographic depicting the number of complaints to the Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2020 (791,790) compared to 2019 (467,361).