The FBI has issued an advisory warning that scammers are using AI to impersonate police and government officials to defraud victims, noting the schemes have been around for years but are spreading and becoming more effective. According to the advisory, between January 2025 and July 2026, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received nearly 61,000 complaints of law enforcement or government impersonation scams, with losses totaling more than $1.6 billion, a significant increase from 2021 and 2022, when victims numbered over 11,000 for each year. The FBI said scammers use technologies such as artificial intelligence to appear as law enforcement and government officials on video calls, adding an appearance of legitimacy, and can "deepfake" voices and faces in phone and video calls. Scammers contact users out of the blue, sometimes spoofing well-known phone numbers from police departments or government agencies, to coerce victims into paying up or handing over sensitive personal information, often accusing victims of wrongdoing while threatening severe consequences, such as committing a crime, failing to report to jury duty, or an expiring medical license. The FBI noted that law enforcement and government authorities will never contact the public by telephone or text message to demand payment or request personal or sensitive information, and warned that scammers demand payment through prepaid cards, couriers, bank wires, cryptocurrency, or cash inserted into cryptocurrency kiosks.