NEW YORK TIMES - Romance scams have increased in the pandemic. So have crypto prices. That has made crypto a useful entry point for criminals looking to part victims from their savings. 56K romance scams, totaling $139M in losses, were reported to the Federal Trade Commission last year. That is nearly twice as many reports as the agency received the previous year. In a bulletin last fall, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Oregon office warned that crypto dating scams were emerging as a major category of cybercrime, with ~1,800 reported cases in the first seven months of the year.
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