Which country has the most scammers? The top 20 by source

Updated 13 October 2026. Every figure was checked against its source that day, and every table carries the year of its data.

No police force, regulator or UN body counts scammers by country. A list that claims to is ranking something else. It rarely says what. "Which country has the most scammers" is really three questions: where scam operations are run from, where scam centers sit today, and where the victims are. Each has its own evidence. The answers don't match. So every source here gets its own table. A rank on one measure says nothing about a rank on another, so nothing is blended.

What is fraud, and what is a scam?

Fraud is deception for financial gain. A scam is fraud in which the victim sends the money or the data. A scam center is a compound where an organized crime group runs scams at industrial scale, often with trafficked workers. How institutions catch both is the subject of the fraud detection and prevention guide.

What are the top 20 scamming countries in the world?

Table 1 is the World Cybercrime Index scams index. No other published country ranking of where scam offenders are based turned up in the research for this page.

Table 1. Where scam offenders are based, by expert ranking. Source: World Cybercrime Index, Scams index (Table S5 of supplementary file S1), Bruce, Lusthaus, Kashyap, Phair and Varese, PLOS ONE, published 10 April 2024. Survey March to October 2021.

Each expert who named a country rated it from 1 to 10 on impact, professionalism and technical skill. The paper multiplies the average by the share of the 92 experts who named the country, then by ten. So a country named by one expert scores near zero, however high the rating. "Scams" here means advance fee fraud, business email compromise and online auction fraud.

Nigeria's lead is wide: 70 nominations against 27 for the United States. The top five are Nigeria, the United States, Russia, China and Romania. The top ten adds India, Ukraine, Ghana, the United Kingdom and Brazil. From row 12 down, every score is under 3.5. Small gaps there mean little.

Two limits matter. The survey closed in October 2021, before Southeast Asia's scam compounds reached their current size. And the authors say their expert pool is skewed toward Europe and the United States. So read the table for what it is. It isn't a head count. It's expert judgment of where offender groups were based.

The same paper ranks all five cybercrime types together. Russia leads that overall index with 58.39. Then come Ukraine, China, the United States, Nigeria, Romania, North Korea, the United Kingdom, Brazil and India. That's the list for cybercrime in general, not for scams.

What do scam networks in the top ten countries look like?

Each note covers operations, networks or enforcement, and names its source. None describes the people of a country.

1. Nigeria

Seventy of the 92 experts named Nigeria. Its score is more than twice the next one. Its technical skill rating, 5.63 out of 10, is the lowest in the top ten (WCI). INTERPOL's 2026 threat assessment says the business email compromise syndicates it tracks are "predominantly based in West Africa" and are expanding into Eastern and Southern Africa. Enforcement is international. In Operation Jackal IV, announced on 25 August 2026, 23 countries made 58 arrests against West African organized crime groups.

2. United States

The paper finds the United States specializes in both technical and non technical crime. Its victim side is the best documented on this page. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received 1,008,597 complaints in 2025, with 20.877 billion dollars in reported losses, up 26 percent on 2024 (IC3 2025 report).

3. Russia

Russia leads the overall index with 58.39. On scams, its technical skill rating of 8.28 is the highest in the top ten (WCI). The paper calls Russia and Ukraine highly technical cybercrime hubs.

4. China

China is fourth on scams and third overall (WCI). It also sits on the enforcement side. From February to December 2025, China, Myanmar and Thailand ran coordinated operations against fraud networks in Myanmar's scam compounds. The crackdown demolished 635 buildings in KK Park (INTERPOL, March 2026).

5. Romania

Fifth on scams, sixth overall. The paper names Romania as one of six countries in the top ten of every index, with China, Russia, Ukraine, the United States and Nigeria. It also finds both technical and non technical crime there.

6. India

India is sixth on scams and tenth overall (WCI). The paper finds that India leans toward scams and is otherwise a balanced hub.

7. Ukraine

Ukraine is second overall but seventh on scams (WCI). The paper groups it with Russia as a highly technical hub. Its overall rank rests on technical crime, not on scams.

8. Ghana

Only 13 experts named Ghana. They rated its impact 8.69 out of 10, the highest in the top 20 (WCI).

9. United Kingdom

Ninth on scams, eighth overall (WCI). The United Kingdom also pays for enforcement. In March 2026 INTERPOL launched Operation Shadow Storm, a task force against the financial fraud that scam centers generate. The UK Home Office funds it (INTERPOL, 16 March 2026).

10. Brazil

Brazil is tenth on scams and ninth overall (WCI). Kaspersky's vendor research describes Grandoreiro as a Brazilian banking trojan. Its 2024 versions targeted 1,700 banks and 276 crypto wallets in 45 countries and territories. Gang members were arrested in Spain, Brazil and Argentina (Securelist, 2024).

Where are scam centers located?

Scam centers cluster in special economic zones and border areas. They move when enforcement arrives. UNODC and INTERPOL track them. Neither ranks countries, so each gets its own table of places.

Table 2. Scam center locations named by UNODC. Source: UNODC, Inflection Point (21 April 2025) and Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment for Southeast Asia 2026 (21 July 2026, data for 2025). Places, not a ranking.

Table 3. Scam center locations reported by INTERPOL. Source: INTERPOL, crime trend update (30 June 2025) and Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment (16 March 2026, data for 2024 to 2025). Places and cases, not a ranking.

The 2021 survey didn't see this. Myanmar received no scams nomination at all. Cambodia and Laos received one each. That isn't an error. It's a date. A current answer needs Table 1 for where offender groups were based, and Tables 2 and 3 for where the operations sit now.

INTERPOL reports that the rise in investment fraud has come with romance baiting: victims are groomed over time, then coerced onto fake crypto platforms. The pattern is better known as pig butchering and investment scams. When a customer names the platform's wallet, the free crypto wallet risk check screens the address against OFAC, UN and EU sanctions lists.

Many of the people typing the messages are victims too. UNODC identified people from at least 80 countries and territories in the region's scam compounds (UNODC, 21 July 2026). INTERPOL counted nearly 80 nationalities among trafficked victims by late 2025. A worker's nationality tells you little about where the operation is based or who runs it.

Which countries in Africa have the most scam operations?

On the World Cybercrime Index scams index, the African countries in rank order are Nigeria (1st), Ghana (8th), South Africa (11th), Cameroon (15th), Gambia (24th), Sierra Leone (26th), Côte d'Ivoire (28th), the Central African Republic (39th, tied) and Morocco (46th, tied). Botswana, Ethiopia and Zambia are among the countries tied at 50th.

INTERPOL's 2026 assessment adds the current picture. Investment fraud often comes from scam centers in Southern and West Africa. Its targets are mainly in North America and Europe. Table 3 holds the Zambia and Namibia cases.

Which countries have the most organized financial crime?

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime scores how pervasive organized financial crime is in each of 193 countries, from 0 to 10. The measure covers financial fraud, such as identity, mass marketing and banking fraud and Ponzi schemes. It also covers tax evasion, embezzlement and misuse of funds. So it's broader than scams. Scores move in half points, and ties are common. The global average is 6.21.

Table 4. Where organized financial crime is most pervasive. Source: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Global Organized Crime Index 2025, financial crimes score (2025 edition; previous edition 2023), read from the index's data service on 13 October 2026. Ties as published.

Myanmar and Cambodia score 8.5 here. On the 2021 scams index, Myanmar has no nomination and Cambodia has one. Neither table is wrong. They measure different things.

One warning. The same index publishes an overall criminality score. It averages 15 criminal markets, drugs and arms included, with five types of criminal actor. Myanmar ranks first on it (8.08), South Africa seventh and Nigeria eighth. Some lists call that a ranking of scammer countries. It isn't. It's a measure of all organized crime.

Which country loses the most money to scams?

In Nigeria, 84 percent of adults encountered a scam in the past year. Over half, 54 percent, interacted with a scammer. And 22 percent lost money or shared information that led to theft (GASA, October 2026). The country at the top of the offender ranking is also a target.

No source opened for this page ranks countries by scam losses. Surveys and complaint systems count different things, so their totals don't line up. Three sources give the clearest view.

Victim surveys. GASA's Global State of Scams 2025 surveyed 46,000 adults in 42 markets. In the past 12 months, 57 percent had experienced a scam and 23 percent lost money. Encounters were most frequent in South America, Africa and Oceania (GASA, 7 October 2025).

Regional losses. UNODC estimates 88.3 billion to 114.1 billion dollars in scam losses across East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand for 2025 (UNODC, July 2026).

The United States. IC3's 1,008,597 complaints in 2025 reported 20.877 billion dollars in losses.

What is the most common type of fraud?

By reported loss in the United States, investment fraud comes first and business email compromise second (Table 5). Worldwide, business email compromise is the fraud type member countries report to INTERPOL most often (March 2026).

Table 5. Top five cyber enabled fraud types by reported loss, United States. Source: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report (2025 data, published April 2026). Complaints filed with IC3, not all losses.

How can I check if scams are rising in my country?

Start with your national complaint channel's annual report, such as IC3's in the United States. GASA's country reviews covered Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa in 2026.

Why do top 10 scammer country lists disagree?

Take Pakistan. The earlier version of this page put it third, with no measure behind the order. On the World Cybercrime Index scams index it's 36th, tied, with one nomination. Sumsub's vendor index says it has the highest fraud rate in that index. The Global Initiative scores its organized financial crime at 7.0. Three sources, three positions.

Table 6. What each source on this page measures. One row per source, no country data. Checked 13 October 2026.

The global fraud index. That's Sumsub's Global Fraud Index 2025, a vendor index of 112 countries. Half its weight is a fraud activity pillar, and the method draws on the verification checks Sumsub runs each day. It lists Tanzania, India, Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan as the least safeguarded against fraud (Sumsub, 9 October 2025). It's one company's model of exposure. It isn't a count of scammers, and it isn't independent research.

The older list's other countries. On the World Cybercrime Index scams index, South Africa is 11th and the Philippines 16th. Venezuela (39th) and Morocco (46th) are tied with one nomination each.

What country has the most credit card fraud?

No source opened for this page ranks countries by credit card fraud, so this page gives no ranking. For card controls, see the payment fraud controls of Complead, formerly Sanction Scanner.

What does a country ranking mean for a compliance team?

A country is a risk signal. It isn't a verdict on a customer. I spent five and a half years as a program manager at Mastercard. One lesson carries over: the country on an account tells you where to look, not what you'll find.

1. Use country as one input, not a gate. Nearly every customer from a listed country has nothing to do with the groups Table 1 ranks. Regulatory country risk is a separate list with its own rules, set out in high risk countries and FATF lists.
2. Score countries at onboarding, then watch for change. KYC requirements by country sets out what each regime asks for. The AML country risk index gives a starting score.
3. Follow the money, not the flag. Picture a romance scam run from a compound abroad. The victim pays a local account opened by a money mule, a person who receives stolen funds and passes them on. The foreign country shows up several hops later, if at all. That's a monitoring problem, covered in money laundering methods and typologies and the transaction monitoring guide. The mule scenario in the transaction monitoring rules library turns that pattern into a test.
4. Expect good customers everywhere. Take AirHelp, a Complead customer: 2.2 million passengers in 35 countries (the AirHelp case, August 2026). Each of those countries holds customers you want. A block list by country would turn them away with the bad actors.
5. Keep the reason with the decision. The record should show which signal raised the score and who decided. An examiner reads the record, not the ranking.

In Complead, onboarding, screening, monitoring, fraud and investigation share one engine. Each customer has one risk score, not a separate score in each tool. How fraud and AML teams share that view is set out in fraud and AML on one platform.

From a country list to a working rule

A ranking tells a fraud team where to look. The work starts after that: which signals to pair with a country, at what threshold, and who reviews the alert. The fraud detection and prevention guide picks up there.