Fraud moves at the speed of whatever technology and fear the moment creates. Between 2020 and 2026 the scams our investigators trace changed almost beyond recognition. This timeline explains how we got here - and why money that "disappeared" last year is often still recoverable now.
2020 - The year fraud went remote
Lockdown did two things at once: it pushed everyday life online, and it flooded inboxes with government relief programmes. The result was an explosion of:
- Phishing and fake-relief scams - emails posing as stimulus, unemployment or health-support portals harvesting bank logins.
- Romance fraud moving onto dating apps as people sought connection while isolated.
- The first wave of crypto "investment" groups, sold in WhatsApp and Telegram chats to people newly comfortable with online money.
The defining feature of 2020 fraud was volume. Criminals industrialised the basic email scam.
2021 - Meme stocks, NFTs and the birth of the modern pump
Markets went wild and so did scams. 2021 was the year of:
- Meme-stock and IPO-raffle groups charging "membership" fees for allocations that never existed.
- NFT and token rug pulls - projects that raised money then vanished overnight.
- Fake trading platforms that showed beautiful dashboards feeding on non-existent liquidity.
Many victims still believe those "charts" were real. Blockchain forensics usually proves they never touched a market at all.
2022 - Collateral damage from the big collapses
When several headline crypto firms imploded in 2022, fraudsters rode the chaos. Recovery-room scams targeted people already burned, promising to "retrieve" locked assets for an upfront fee. Legitimate tracing rarely works that way - and the upfront-fee promise is itself the tell.
2023 - Pig butchering goes mainstream
"Pig butchering" (long-con investment fraud) became the dominant high-loss scam worldwide. Criminal syndicates - many operating from compounds in South-East Asia - groom victims for weeks or months on fake apps that show fabricated profits before demanding "taxes" and "release fees." Losses routinely run into six figures.
2024 - Authorised-payment fraud and social engineering banks
As banks hardened against account takeover, fraud migrated to making victims pay willingly. Romance and investment scams were re-engineered to trigger faster payments, and pressure tactics were designed to stop victims alerting their own bank. Tracing these funds depends on speed: freeze requests in the first 24-72 hours matter more than anything else.
2025 - AI-assisted impersonation at scale
Voice-cloning and deepfake video moved from novelty to toolset. "Hi Mum" scams, fake CEO payment requests and synthetic video calls became common. The emotional manipulation got sharper because the impersonation got near-perfect.
2026 - Hybrid fraud and the recovery window
Today's cases blend everything above: a deepfake call starts a relationship, a fake app grows a "portfolio," and a crypto rail moves the money out within hours. The pattern that has not changed since 2020 is simple - the funds usually move, but they leave a trail.
What this means if you have been defrauded
- Old cases are not automatically dead. Blockchain assets can sit in a wallet for years; bank and exchange accounts can still hold recoverable balances.
- Speed still matters. The fresher the trail, the more freeze options exist.
- Evidence beats memory. Save chats, transaction hashes, wallet addresses, screenshots and emails - our free recovery checklist shows exactly what to keep.
If you are unsure whether your case is still viable, send us what you have. We assess the trail before you commit to anything - and we will tell you honestly if recovery is not realistic.
