Fraud Statistics Canada [2025]: Losses, Types & Trends

Canadians lost a reported $643.7 million to fraud in 2024, per the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. That figure captures only 5 to 10 percent of actual incidents. Investment fraud drove $313 million of the total. Romance scams, identity theft, CRA impersonation, elder fraud, and mortgage fraud account for the remainder. The sections below examine each, alongside the StatCan UCR and 2019 GSS data that frame the under-reporting gap.

Headline numbers at a glance

The CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report recorded $643.7 million in total fraud losses — drawn from 108,878 reports involving at least 35,587 confirmed victims. Investment fraud alone accounted for $313 million, or 49 percent of all reported losses, making it the costliest fraud category for the fifth consecutive year.

The headline figures represent a floor, not a ceiling. Only 5 to 10 percent of fraud incidents are ever reported, according to research from McMaster University and Statistics Canada cited in the RCMP Gazette. The 2019 General Social Survey — the most recent population-level victimization study — estimated 2.5 million Canadians experienced fraud in a single year. The CAFC received roughly 67,000 Canadian reports that same year, a gap of approximately 37 to 1. Police-reported fraud rates tell a parallel story. Statistics Canada’s UCR series recorded 500 incidents per 100,000 population in 2024, nearly double the 256 rate from 2010.

Reported losses rose from $165 million in 2020 to $643.7 million in 2024, a 290 percent increase in four years. Total report volumes declined each year after 2021. The divergence reflects two forces: larger individual losses per incident, and the CAFC’s shift toward processing higher-value cases over lower-value ones.

What is fraud in Canada

Under section 380 of Canada’s Criminal Code, fraud is the use of deceit, falsehood, or other fraudulent means. The deprivation must be of property, money, or valuable security. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre documents more than 30 fraud types, from identity fraud and investment scams to romance scams and CRA impersonation. Each shares four hallmarks: deception, urgency, mass targeting, and financial or data loss.

The Criminal Code, s. 380 sets the legal threshold: fraud exceeding $5,000 in value is an indictable offence carrying up to 14 years’ imprisonment. Fraud totalling more than $1 million triggers a mandatory minimum of two years under s. 380(1.1). These thresholds matter because most fraud incidents fall well below $5,000. Phishing, service fraud, and small-amount merchandise fraud are typically prosecuted summarily or not at all.

The CAFC tracks fraud by solicitation method as well as by fraud type. Cyber-enabled fraud covers solicitations arriving via the internet, social networks, email, or text. It accounted for $481.6 million of the 2024 total, representing 75 percent of all reported fraud losses. That share comes from only 4 of the 13 solicitation methods the CAFC tracks. The highest-volume fraud types by report count in 2024 were identity fraud (9,683 reports), service fraud (5,191 reports), merchandise fraud (4,676 reports), investment fraud (4,214 reports), and extortion (4,045 reports). By dollar loss, the ranking reverses sharply: investment fraud leads at $313 million, followed by spear phishing at $67 million and romance scams at $58.9 million.

The following list covers the major categories tracked by the CAFC:

• Identity fraud — unauthorized use of personal information to open accounts, make purchases, or file claims. Highest report volume in 2024; 100% victimization rate.
• Investment fraud — fraudulent investment schemes including cryptocurrency scams, pig-butchering operations, and pump-and-dump promotions. Highest dollar loss in 2024 ($313 million).
• Service fraud — charges for services not rendered or delivered at substandard quality. Second-highest report volume in 2024.
• Phishing and spear phishing — emails or texts directing recipients to disclose credentials or financial data. Spear phishing, the targeted and highly personalized variant, accounted for $67 million in 2024 losses.
• Romance scams — long-term emotional manipulation leading to financial transfers. Third-highest dollar loss category in 2024.
• CRA impersonation — fraudsters posing as Canada Revenue Agency agents demanding immediate tax payment, often via cryptocurrency or gift cards.
• Extortion and sextortion — demands for money under threat of embarrassment, violence, or data exposure. Particularly concentrated in the under-20 age group.

Investment fraud and crypto scams

Canadians reported $313 million in losses to investment fraud in 2024 — 49 percent of all CAFC-reported fraud losses nationally — according to the CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report. The average loss per investment fraud victim was $78,309, the highest of any fraud category tracked by the CAFC.

In March 2025, the Canadian Securities Administrators, CAFC, and RCMP issued a joint advisory. The advisory warned that more than 4,000 investment fraud cases were reported to the CAFC in 2024. Twenty-three percent of Canadians reported being approached with a possible fraudulent investment, up 5 percentage points since 2020. The advisory also found that 46 percent of Canadians encounter investment opportunities on social media. Fraudsters there use fabricated profiles and urgency tactics to build trust before soliciting funds.

Cryptocurrency is the payment method of choice in investment fraud. Victims sent $162.6 million to fraudsters via cryptocurrency in 2024, up 5 percent year over year in dollar terms. The average per crypto transaction was $23,815 CAD. That average is the highest of any payment method the CAFC tracks. Crypto payments were concentrated in investment, job, and romance scams.

Older Canadians face the heaviest individual losses. Victims aged 60 and older reported $111.3 million in investment fraud losses in 2024, or 36 percent of all investment fraud losses. The cohort averaged $90,554 per victimization, higher than any other age group. The combination of larger accessible savings, trust in authority figures, and less familiarity with crypto-exchange mechanics makes this demographic the primary target.

The investment fraud sibling page is planned. It will cover pig-butchering schemes, crypto fraud mechanics, and ASC enforcement data in depth, and will be linked here when published.

The most-reported investment fraud schemes in 2024, by CAFC and CSA categorization:

• Cryptocurrency investment scams — fabricated exchanges and “investment platforms” that show fake gains until the victim attempts withdrawal. Average loss per CAFC-reported crypto-payment incident was $23,815, the highest of any payment method.
• Pig butchering (shā zhū pán) — long-arc romance + investment hybrid in which the scammer builds trust over weeks before steering the victim onto a fraudulent platform. Drove a substantial share of the $162.6 million in crypto-payment losses the CAFC tracked in 2024.
• Pump-and-dump and “guru” promotions — coordinated social-media campaigns that artificially inflate a low-volume asset, then dump on retail buyers. The CSA found 46 percent of Canadians encounter investment opportunities on social media, where these schemes proliferate.
• Boiler-room solicitation — high-pressure cold calls or emails offering “limited-time” private placements. The ASC and other provincial regulators publish ongoing investor alerts; 23 percent of Canadians reported being approached with a possible fraudulent investment in 2024, up 5 percentage points since 2020.

Romance scam losses

Romance scams cost Canadians $58.9 million in 2024, affecting 1,058 confirmed CAFC victims at an average loss of $55,697 per victim — the third-highest average of any fraud category. Victims aged 30 and older accounted for $42.5 million of that total, according to the CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report.

Older cohorts absorbed the largest individual losses. Canadians aged 60 and above lost $23.1 million to romance scams in 2024, averaging $72,447 per victimization across 359 reports. The 50 to 59 cohort averaged slightly higher at $72,893 per incident. Drilling into the CAFC’s 2024 report reveals why: it identifies Relationship Investment Fraud as a major driver. Victims are first cultivated through a romantic relationship, then steered onto fraudulent investment platforms. Across all victims aged 30 and older, this convergence mechanism alone produced $44.5 million in 2024 losses.

Tactics have shifted hard since 2020. Earlier romance scams ended in gift-card or wire-transfer requests. Fraudsters now layer extended emotional grooming on top of cryptocurrency investment pitches, the so-called “pig-butchering” model. Average losses now run into five and six figures per victim. Dating apps and social media remain the dominant initial-contact channels, the same surfaces driving the investment fraud growth covered above.

For the cross-national comparison, demographic cuts by age and gender, and a deeper dive into pig-butchering operations, see romance scam statistics.

Identity theft and CRA impersonation scams

Identity fraud was the most frequently reported fraud type in Canada in 2024, with 9,683 reports to the CAFC and a 100 percent victimization rate. Every person who filed a report was confirmed as a victim. The 30 to 39 age group faced the highest volume of identity fraud reports. The type affected all age cohorts at comparable rates, according to the CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report.

Phishing generated an additional 3,532 CAFC reports in 2024 with a 28.5 percent victimization rate. Bank Investigator fraud — scams claiming to originate from a victim’s own financial institution — posted the second-largest year-over-year victimization increase at 16.5 percent in 2024. These two fraud types frequently serve as the entry point for identity compromise: stolen credentials are then used to open fraudulent credit accounts, reroute tax refunds, or access investment platforms.

Self-reported victimization data from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada’s 2024 Canadian Financial Capability Survey shows how sharply the digital threat landscape has shifted. Phishing victimization nearly tripled between 2019 and 2024, rising from 4 percent to 13 percent of survey respondents. Investment fraud victimization also tripled, from 3 percent to 9 percent. Overall, 46 percent of 2024 survey respondents reported being victimized by investment fraud, unauthorized card use, or phishing, up from 22 percent in 2019.

The CRA impersonation variant deserves separate attention. Fraudsters pose as Canada Revenue Agency agents and demand immediate payment of alleged tax arrears, typically via cryptocurrency or gift cards. The CRA’s own fraud guidance notes that the agency will never demand immediate payment by cryptocurrency, gift card, or Interac e-Transfer, and will never threaten immediate arrest. These scams remain highly effective because they exploit the authority of a credible federal institution against taxpayers who are uncertain about their filing status.

Fraud-related cybercrime violations reported to Canadian police reached nearly 48,900 in 2023, almost double the count from 2019. That is a 95 percent increase in four years. Over the same period, the share of Canadian businesses affected by cyber incidents fell from 21 to 16 percent, per Statistics Canada’s fraud data story. The business-sector decline likely reflects investment in endpoint security; the consumer-sector increase reflects the opposite trend.

The following types of identity-based fraud are most commonly reported:

• Identity fraud — use of stolen personal data to impersonate the victim, open accounts, or file fraudulent claims. 9,683 reports to CAFC in 2024; 100% victimization rate.
• Phishing — email or SMS directing recipients to input credentials on fraudulent sites. 3,532 CAFC reports in 2024; 28.5% victimization rate.
• Bank Investigator fraud — caller impersonates bank fraud department to extract account credentials or authorize transfers. Victimization rate rose 16.5% year over year in 2024.
• CRA impersonation — caller or emailer poses as a CRA agent demanding immediate tax payment via cryptocurrency, gift card, or wire.
• Account takeover — credential-stuffing or phishing-derived access used to hijack bank, investment, or email accounts.

The identity theft and CRA scam sibling page is planned and will be linked here when published. It will cover the full typology, enforcement case counts, and victim-response steps. For individuals investigating suspected identity fraud or CRA scam activity involving a known suspect, corporate investigations services can document digital activity and financial trails.

Elder fraud and seniors

$179.9 million in 2024 fraud losses fell on Canadians aged 60 and older. That is 40.3 percent of the national total, against a population share of roughly 23 percent. The 60+ group filed 12,801 CAFC reports, producing 8,327 confirmed victims at a 65.0 percent victimization rate. The average loss was $21,604 per victim, per the CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report.

Within that cohort, three fraud types dominate the report mix. Service fraud led on volume (1,887 reports; 78.3% victimization rate), identity fraud followed (1,684 reports; 100% victimization rate), and investment fraud came third (1,285 reports; 95.6% victimization rate). Identity fraud’s 100 percent rate means every senior who files an identity-fraud report is confirmed as a victim — credential-harvesting operations target older adults with unusual precision.

Average loss per victimization climbs steadily up the age curve. The 30 to 39 cohort averaged $7,813 per incident in 2024; 40 to 49 averaged $13,272; 50 to 59 averaged $21,998; the 60+ cohort averaged $21,604. Younger Canadians get hit more often in volume terms — sextortion, phishing, account takeovers — while older Canadians sustain the largest dollar losses on the cases that do hit. CAFC’s annual reports back to 2020 show the same age-gradient every year.

Several structural factors drive the senior dollar impact: larger accessible savings, higher trust in authority figures, social isolation that limits third-party verification, and unfamiliarity with cryptocurrency and digital-identity mechanics. Investment fraud’s 95.6 percent victimization rate inside the 60+ cohort is the most damning single number. Once an older Canadian engages with a fraudulent investment pitch, the case almost always converts to a confirmed loss.

For the cognitive-vulnerability research, cross-national comparisons, and the full scam typology aimed at seniors, see elder fraud statistics.

Mortgage fraud

Canada’s mortgage fraud application rate dropped sharply in 2024. The rate fell from 0.46 percent in Q4 2023 to 0.19 percent in Q4 2024, per Equifax Canada’s H2 2024 Market Pulse Fraud Trends report. The decline likely reflects lender hardening after a sustained period of elevated application fraud during the 2021–2023 low-rate environment.

More than 90 percent of mortgage fraud involves falsified financial documents — falsified bank statements, income records, or down payment sources — according to Equifax Canada. First-party mortgage fraud, where the applicant provides false information to qualify for a mortgage they could not otherwise obtain, accounts for the majority of Canadian mortgage fraud cases. Falsified income documents and inflated down payment sources are the most common methods; Equifax Canada notes that 80 percent of first-party fraud overall involves falsified documents and inflated income.

Ontario carries the country’s highest provincial mortgage fraud rate (Equifax Canada, 2023) and Ontario investment fraud losses reached $102.7 million in 2024 — the largest provincial total in either category. The convergence is not coincidental: Ontario’s property values, mortgage origination volume, and active investment-fraud ecosystem stack into a single concentrated risk surface for financial crime.

Third-party schemes — where a broker, appraiser, or other professional facilitates or initiates the fraud without the borrower’s full knowledge — are the harder-to-detect class. Title fraud, property flipping rings, and appraisal inflation all involve coordination between multiple parties. The signal is documentation inconsistency: discrepant income statements, rapidly flipped ownership histories, appraisal values that diverge from comparable sales.

Corporate investigations services document the financial paper trails and identity-verification inconsistencies needed for lender escalation or law enforcement referral. The work fits cases involving falsified documents or coordinated application schemes.

For the Toronto-specific dataset, FSRA enforcement case studies, and the documentation-pattern playbook, see mortgage fraud Toronto.

Who is most at risk: demographics and vulnerabilities

Two datasets carry the demographic story. The 2019 General Social Survey is the most recent population-level fraud victimization study Statistics Canada has fielded; the CAFC’s 2024 age-range table provides the current-year layer. Read together, they overturn the intuition that fraud preys on the financially or socially vulnerable. The highest-income, highest-education Canadians get hit at sharply higher rates.

Age and victimization rate (CAFC reports, 2024)

Canadians 19 and under face the highest victimization rate at 92.8 percent — almost entirely driven by extortion and sextortion scams aimed at teenagers on social and gaming platforms. At the other end of the curve, the 60+ cohort posts the lowest victimization rate of any age group while reporting the highest average dollar loss. The split is a function of what fraud each cohort encounters: teens get hit by high-volume coercion schemes; seniors get hit by high-dollar investment and romance scams.

Income, education, and language (Statistics Canada GSS 2019)

The income and education findings are the most counterintuitive in the dataset. Higher income and higher education correlate with greater fraud victimization, not less:

• Canadians earning $120,000 or more annually had a 5-year fraud victimization rate of 24 percent, versus 13 percent for those earning under $20,000.
• University graduates were 2.5 times more likely to report fraud victimization than those without a high school diploma.
• Anglophones had a 5-year fraud victimization rate of 18 percent, compared with 13 percent for Francophones.
• Canadians living with a disability reported a slightly higher rate (19 percent) than those without (16 percent).

Exposure drives the income and education gradient, not gullibility. Higher-income Canadians hold larger investment portfolios, transact more online, and surface in more lead lists for fraudulent investment pitches. From the fraudster’s perspective, an Anglophone university graduate earning $120K is a higher expected-value target than a low-income retiree — and the data reflects that targeting decision.

Gender differences (FCAC 2024 CFCS)

The FCAC’s 2024 Canadian Financial Capability Survey found that men are more likely to experience investment fraud. Women are more likely to experience phishing and unauthorized bank or credit card use. Overall, 46 percent of 2024 survey respondents reported being victimized by investment fraud, unauthorized card use, or phishing, up from 22 percent in 2019.

Fraud losses and volume by year: five-year trends

Total reported fraud losses — CAFC overall series (all reporters, including international)

Sources: CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report pages 19–22 (overall loss chart, Canadian loss chart, report breakdown chart).

The Canadian-victim-only series removes reports from international filers and provides the cleanest national picture. Losses to Canadian victims rose from $107 million in 2020 to $492 million in 2024, a 360 percent increase in four years. Total reported losses (overall series) rose 290 percent over the same period.

Two structural observations matter for interpreting this table. First, report volumes fell every year after 2021, while losses climbed. The divergence reflects higher average losses per case and the CAFC’s processing constraints. Only 47 percent of reports were processed in 2024, versus over 80 percent in 2020–2021. The shift likely also reflects who reports: victims with larger losses may be more motivated to file a formal report.

Second, investment fraud dominated the top-loss category every year from 2020 to 2024 without exception.

Police-reported fraud rates — Statistics Canada UCR series

Statistics Canada’s Uniform Crime Reporting survey tracks police-reported fraud rates independently of CAFC voluntary reports. The UCR series shows a police-reported fraud rate of 500 incidents per 100,000 population in 2024, nearly double the 256 rate recorded in 2010. The sharpest growth occurred between 2014 and 2023, when rates climbed from 261 to 498 per 100,000.

Police-reported incidents exceeded 201,000 in 2023, a 12 percent year-over-year increase, according to Statistics Canada’s fraud data story. The 2024 UCR data excludes Montreal Police Service figures due to transmission issues, which means the 500 per 100,000 rate slightly understates the national total.

Provincial and regional breakdown

CAFC reports from Canadian victims, by province, 2024

Source: CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report, page 15 (Provincial Breakdown table). *Quebec victimization rate estimated from executive summary range.

Ontario’s $219.1 million in total losses leads all provinces by a wide margin, driven by the province’s investment fraud concentration ($102.7 million). British Columbia ranked second in total losses at $79.8 million despite having roughly one-third of Ontario’s population. Quebec reported the highest per-capita report rate among major provinces (121 per 100,000) but the lowest total losses ($55.1 million), suggesting a greater proportion of lower-loss fraud types. Manitoba’s per-capita report rate (128 per 100,000) was the highest among larger provinces; Yukon’s rate of 142 per 100,000 exceeded every province.

Investment fraud was the top category by dollar loss in 12 of 13 Canadian provinces and territories in 2024. Ontario’s investment fraud losses reached $102.7 million; British Columbia reported $42.8 million; Alberta reported $32.8 million.

Self-reported victimization rates diverge significantly from CAFC data by region

The 2019 Statistics Canada self-reported fraud survey shows a different provincial ranking. Alberta led all provinces and territories with a 5-year fraud victimization rate of 22 percent, more than double Nunavut’s 8.6 percent rate. Ontario and Quebec sat at 17 percent and 14 percent respectively, both at or below the 17 percent national average, despite Ontario dominating CAFC report volumes.

The divergence between self-reported and CAFC-reported provincial data illustrates a consistent methodological tension: CAFC data reflects reporting behaviour as much as victimization rates. Alberta’s high self-reported victimization combined with its below-average CAFC per-capita rate suggests a larger share of Alberta fraud victims are not reporting to the CAFC.

Methodology — what the numbers count and what they don’t

Three distinct measurement frameworks produce Canada’s fraud statistics. Each captures a different slice of the problem; none captures the full picture.

Under-reporting: the 37-to-1 gap

The 5 to 10 percent CAFC reporting rate is the single most important methodological caveat in Canadian fraud data. The CAFC 2024 Annual Statistical Report states this rate explicitly. The 2019 GSS estimated 2.5 million fraud victims in a single year. The CAFC received roughly 67,000 Canadian reports that same year, a gap of approximately 37 to 1, as documented in Statistics Canada’s fraud data story.

The 2019 GSS measured reporting behaviour directly. Only 11 percent of fraud victims reported to police, 65 percent reported to their bank or credit card company, and 7 percent reported to the CAFC. Twenty-five percent did not report to any organization at all. Under-reporting is driven by shame, uncertainty about whether the incident constitutes fraud, and low expectations of recovering funds.

The processing constraint compounds the measurement gap

The CAFC processed only 47 percent of reports received in 2024, down from over 80 percent processed in 2020 and 2021. Processed reports — those reviewed and validated by CAFC staff — are the basis for all official statistics. The remaining 53 percent are not included in loss or victim counts. This means the $644 million headline and the 35,587 victim count represent a validated floor among reports voluntarily filed, not a ceiling on actual losses.

Canadian-victim versus overall figures

CAFC receives reports from international filers as well — victims outside Canada reporting Canadian-based fraud operations. The overall 2024 figure ($643.7 million) includes those international reports; the Canadian-victim-only figure ($492 million from roughly 41,000 Canadian reports) is the cleaner measure of losses borne by Canadians. Cite $492 million for Canadian losses; cite $644 million for trend comparisons, because the overall series spans all five years and the Canadian-only series does not.

What these numbers mean for Canadians

$644 million is the floor. Apply the CAFC’s own 5 to 10 percent reporting rate and the implied true annual loss to Canadians sits between $6 and $12 billion. No Canadian dataset directly measures that range. Investment fraud alone produced an average loss of $78,000 per confirmed 2024 victim ($313M across roughly 4,000 confirmed victims). Among victims aged 60 and older, that average climbed to $90,000.

The demographics keep saying the same thing the 2019 GSS data showed: fraud is not primarily an exploitation of vulnerability. It is an exploitation of exposure. High-income Canadians hold the larger portfolio assets fraudsters want to steal. Seniors trust authority figures and investment narratives more readily. Teenagers and young adults live on the social and gaming platforms where coercion-based scams operate at scale. Each cohort gets the fraud type its surface area invites.

As licensed PIs working in Canada’s most fraud-dense markets, we see the case-level shape of these aggregate numbers in client work. Romance-scam victims try to trace crypto wallets. Employers chase falsified expense claims. Families investigate financial activity by a caregiver. The aggregate data describes the population; the individual case rarely matches the average.

Where evidence-gathering on conduct, suspects, or financial transfers can support a police referral, civil claim, or insurance file, surveillance services establish the factual record that those processes need. Financial and corporate fraud investigation work falls under the corporate investigations practice. For the broader index of fraud-related research on this site, the fraud research hub collects every Canadian fraud-pillar post.