AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin area is becoming a key target for romance scams and other cyber-crimes, according to the latest data from the FBI obtained by KXAN investigators.
People in the Austin metropolitan area filed 180 complaints last year to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) about various kinds of “confidence scams,” where bad actors use elaborate ploys to earn someone’s trust in order to defraud them.The FBI reports those victims lost approximately $20 million in 2025.
More than 60% of those complaints came from victims over the age of 50. This group in Austin also reported the largest amount of financial losses, at $19 million – a “significantly” higher amount than in any of the other cities covered by the FBI’s San Antonio Field Office, which stretches from Waco to San Antonio to Brownsville…