A partner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar
Crime Center (NW3C), now referred to as the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or
IC3. The IFCCÂ’s role is to deal with Internet-related fraud by providing a
user-friendly reporting mechanism to alert law enforcement agents of a likely
criminal or civil breach. As a service to law enforcement and regulatory
bodies, the IFCC maintains a centralized repository for Internet fraud
complaints and maintains statistics related to fraud trends.
In 2002, the IFCC referred more than 43,000 complaints of
online fraud to the law enforcement authorities, a three-fold increase over
that of 2001, and the number of complaints continues to grow annually. For example,
the total dollar loss from the 2002 referred fraud cases was $54 million, an
increase in total dollar loss from $17 million in 2001. In 2005, IC3 referred
97,076 complaints of crime to federal, state, and local law enforcement
agencies around the U.S. for further investigation. The majority of cases
concerned fraud and resulted in financial losses for victims. The total fraud
dollar loss from all referred cases was $183.12 million with a median dollar
loss of $424.00 per incident. This total amount was up from $68 million in
2004.
See Also:
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ; Fraud.
Internet Crime Complaint Center. IC3 2005 Internet Crime Report. [Online, June,
20, 2006.] IC3 Web Site. http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreport/2005_
IC3Report.pdf. Internet Fraud Complaint Center. IFCC 2002 Internet Fraud
Report. [Online, 2003.] Internet Fraud Complaint Center Website.
http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/strategy/2002_
IFCCReport.pdf; Internet Fraud Complaint Center. Welcome to IFCC. [Online,
August 11, 2004.] Internet Fraud Complaint Center Website.
http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp.
