Fake Cops, Real Losses: FBI Says Government Impersonation Scams Topped $1.6 Billion in 19 Months
The FBI has put some numbers to something most people already suspected was bad. Between January 2025 and July 2026, scammers pretending to be law enforcement or government officials extracted more than $1.6 billion from victims across the US. That figure comes from nearly 61,000 complaints filed with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, which works out to an average loss of over $26,000 per victim. Not pocket change.
The bog-standard version of this scam is straightforward and grimly effective. Someone calls you out of nowhere, claims you're connected to a crime, and threatens arrest or prison unless you pay up immediately. Fear does the rest of the work.
About 11 percent of complaints involved a jury duty variant: victims were told they'd missed court or failed to report for jury service and now owed a fine or faced arrest. That slice of the operation generated nearly $36 million in losses across 6,833 complaints.
More lucrative still were targeted attacks on professionals. Scammers would do a bit of homework first, find out what the victim did for a living, then tailor the pitch accordingly. Medical practitioners were a common target: callers would claim a doctor's licence was about to expire, or worse, that it had been flagged in connection with criminal activity. Pay up to renew it, or pay up to keep your reputation intact. Roughly 3,300 people fell for this kind of approach, losing a combined $37 million.
A smaller number of complaints, fewer than 500, involved demands for payment to renew supposedly expired passports or driving licences. Crude, but it still netted criminals around $348,000.
The most theatrical scam in the IC3's report targeted immigrants, foreign nationals, and international students. Fraudsters would impersonate either foreign law enforcement or diplomatic officials based in the US, threatening deportation, extradition, or cancellation of the victim's home-country passport. What made some of these operations stand out was the production effort involved. Criminals showed up to video calls in uniform, or staged elaborate fake government offices as backdrops.
The results were disproportionate. Just 1,809 complaints in this category generated over $140 million in losses, meaning roughly 3 percent of cases accounted for nearly 10 percent of total damages. When you invest in the set dressing, apparently, the returns improve.
This isn't purely an American problem. In the Netherlands, police logged more than 7,200 reports of fake officer scams in just the first six months of 2026. The Dutch variant tends to be more hands-on: fraudsters turn up at people's doors, often targeting elderly residents, and offer to safeguard their valuables while posing as police. They then walk off with the jewellery, cash, and bank cards they've been handed. Some of those attempting the scam have been as young as 14. Dutch police have responded by ramping up public awareness efforts.
The FBI's advice is simple. No legitimate law enforcement agency will call you demanding payment or fishing for sensitive personal information. If someone claims to be a federal agent on the phone, ask for their credentials, hang up, and call the relevant office directly using a number you found yourself. If the caller was genuine, they'll still be reachable. If they weren't, you've just saved yourself $26,000.