Today, the Knoxville Division of the FBI launched digital billboards around the city and state to promote the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The FBI established the IC3 as a reliable and convenient mechanism to receive complaints of Internet crime from the public. It also serves to develop effective alliances with industry partners.

Reporting of Internet crime increased in 2015; the IC3 received a total of 288,012 complaints last year. The adjusted dollar loss for those 288,012 complaints totaled $1,070,711,522.

This initiative is part of Operation Wellspring (OWS), launched in 2013, and combines the efforts of the FBI and its state and local law enforcement partners to attack the threat of cyber-crime by focusing on crimes such as Internet fraud, which directly impact individual citizens across the nation.

There are currently 10 FBI field offices that have Cyber Task Forces (CTFs) that participate in OWS to combat this growing crime. The CTFs connect state and local law enforcement officers and government offices with federal cyber investigative resources. Once the IC3 receives a complaint filed by a victim, the analysts uses this data to create intelligence documents targeting a threat within the area that a CTF covers. This information is provided to the CTF and utilized by state and local task force officers who have been trained to investigate Internet-facilitated crimes. Using a blend of federal, state, and local resources, OWS provides CTFs the ability to address the multitude of criminal activities occurring through the Internet.

The following FBI Divisions have Cyber Task Forces that are part of OWS:

• Albany
• Buffalo
• Kansas City
• Knoxville
• New Orleans
• New York City
• Phoenix
• Oklahoma City
• Salt Lake City
• San Diego

The three major fraud types that were reported in 2015 were business e-mail compromise, e-mail account compromise, and ransomware.

To report an Internet-based crime, visit www.IC3.gov.