Internet Crime Is On The Rise Again, Feds Say

Online crime was up again in 2010, hitting its second-highest numbers of the past decade, according to a report issued by federal law enforcement authorities yesterday.

According to the "2010 Internet Crime Report," the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 303,809 complaints of Internet crime in 2010, the second-most in its 10-year history.

IC3 is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Since its creation in 2000, IC3 has received more than 2 million Internet crime complaints.

IC3 received and processed an average of 25,317 complaints per month in 2010, according to the report. Nondelivery of payment or merchandise accounted for the most complaints (14.4 percent). Scams using the FBI's name (13.2 percent) and incidents of identity theft (9.8 percent) rounded out the top three types of complaints.

In 2010, IC3 referred nearly half of all complaints (121,710) to law enforcement for further investigation, according to the report.

"We encourage individuals to report Internet crime through the IC3 Web portal," says Gordon Snow, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division. "The IC3 is a unique resource for federal, state, and local law enforcement to intake cases efficiently, find patterns in what otherwise appear to be isolated incidents, combine multiple smaller crime reports into larger, higher priority cases, and ultimately bring criminals to justice."

NW3C has developed a companion website for the 2010 report. The site features detailed information about Internet crime trends in all 50 states.

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