One of the factors shaping fraud in 2025 is the rise of artificial intelligence, which has made plans more convincing and harder to detect.
A new report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center based on 12,368 complaints shows that cybercriminals stole more than $275 million in real estate fraud last year. This is an increase from 2023 and 2024, but a significant decrease from 2022, when complaints peaked at 11,727 and losses amounted to $397 million.
The report defines real estate fraud as “financial loss due to fraud related to real estate investment, rental properties, and timeshare properties.”
One of the factors shaping fraud in 2025 is the rise of artificial intelligence, which has made plans more convincing and harder to detect.
According to the report, “AI technology will enable the creation of large volumes of persuasive synthetic content, including social media profiles and personalized conversations.” “People have been working with video and audio in the same way for decades, but the widespread availability of this developing technology allows them to create high-quality content.”
Cryptocurrency is another area the report identified as having a high incidence of real estate fraud, with 715 cases involving cryptocurrencies resulting in losses of more than $25 million.
The report emphasized the importance of prompt reporting to enable the FBI’s Recovered Assets Team (RAT) to initiate Financial Fraud Kill Chain (FFKC) protocols. This process is designed to streamline communication between financial institutions and FBI field offices, freeze victims’ funds as quickly as possible, and help stop fraudulent transactions.
A case study included in the report illustrates how FFKC’s process works, including how a senior citizen in Missouri who was preparing to close on a property received a compromised email purporting to contain instructions to transfer more than $1.3 million from a title company to a fraudulent account. RATs partnered with domestic banking institutions and international financial crime organizations to freeze the accounts of fraudulent recipients.
In another complaint, an individual preparing for a home closing said he received an email “impersonating a legitimate attorney.” They submitted more than $449,000 in wires to banks before disclosing this scheme. The report said that after the fraud was reported to the bank, the lawyers contacted the beneficiary bank with “negative results” but were informed that “the full amount was still in the account and pending” due to RAT’s intervention and FFKC’s request to freeze the fraudulent account at the beneficiary bank.
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