The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has ranked Nigeria as the 16th worst affected country by internet crimes for 2020.

This was released in its annual report made public on Wednesday.

According to the report, Nigeria is among the top 20 international victim countries of online-based crime.

Other countries that ranked better than Nigeria are Pakistan, China, Columbia, and Hong Kong.

Apart from Nigeria, South Africa was also listed among the ‘worst’ 20. South Africa rated sixth with 1,754 victims while Nigeria had 443 victims.

The report noted that the top three crimes reported by victims in America in 2020 were phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams, and extortion, adding that victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance, and confidence schemes, and investment fraud.

“IC3 received a record number of complaints from the American public in 2020: 791,790, with reported losses exceeding $4.1 billion. This represents a 69 per cent increase in total complaints from 2019.

“Business E-mail Compromise schemes continued to be the costliest: 19,369 complaints with an adjusted loss of approximately $1.8 billion. Phishing scams were also prominent: 241,342 complaints, with adjusted losses of over $54 million. The number of ransomware incidents also continues to rise, with 2,474 incidents reported in 2020,” Deputy Director of FBI, Paul Abbate, added.

The top 20 countries and their number of victims are:
1. United Kingdom 216,633
2. Canada 5,399
3. India 2,930
4. Greece 2,314
5. Australia 1,807
6. South Africa 1,754
7. France 1,640
8. Germany 1,578
9. Mexico 1,164
10. Belgium 1,023
11. Brazil 951
12. Philippines 898
13. Italy 728
14. Spain 618
15. Netherlands 450
16. Nigeria 443
17. Pakistan 443
18. China 442
19. Colombia 418
20. Hong Kong 407.