California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned residents about rising cryptocurrency fraud and online sextortion scams, urging Californians to recognize warning signs and protect themselves as scammers increasingly target younger people through social media.
Speaking at a news conference on Oct. 19, Bonta said Americans lost $20.9 billion to internet-based scams in 2025, including $11.4 billion to cryptocurrency scams. He said artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and malicious smart contracts have made fraud easier to carry out and more difficult to detect and prevent.
While older Californians remain targets, Bonta said his office has seen a sharp rise in reports of Gen Z consumers being targeted on platforms such as Twitch, TikTok, and Instagram.
One growing scheme involves so-called rug-pull scams, in which fraudsters promote low-priced stocks or volatile cryptocurrencies through online investment groups and streaming communities. After generating interest and driving up prices, scammers sell their holdings, causing values to collapse and leaving investors with losses.
Bonta also warned about sextortion, in which scammers trick or coerce victims into sharing explicit images before threatening to distribute them to friends and family unless they pay. He advised victims not to give in to demands, saying scammers often do not release the images when victims refuse to pay. Instead, he recommended ignoring and blocking the perpetrators.
Another scheme, known as recovery fraud, targets people who have already lost money to cryptocurrency scams. Fraudsters impersonate blockchain recovery specialists or law enforcement officials and demand additional payments while promising to recover stolen assets.
Bonta urged Californians to be skeptical of promises of large returns on small investments, fake cryptocurrencies resembling established ones, and celebrity endorsements that may have been generated using artificial intelligence. He also warned that scammers can use AI to impersonate loved ones through manipulated video and audio.
“Never use a crypto ATM,” Bonta said, emphasizing that transactions can be difficult to trace and reverse and that the machines lack adequate consumer protections.
His office has shut down more than 100 fraudulent websites over the past two years that collectively scammed victims out of at least $8.3 million, he said.
Bonta also highlighted Senate Bill 1208, which he said was recently signed into law. The measure allows law enforcement to petition a court to return seized cryptocurrency to victims, including when alleged perpetrators are outside U.S. jurisdiction.
Residents who have fallen victim to scams can report them to the California Department of Justice at oag.ca.gov/report.
Bonta also urged victims not to feel embarrassed, stressing that scammers are responsible for the harm they cause.
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Bo Tefu wrote this story
