A document by the Attorney General’s Office, in which the data is part of a strategy dedicated to cybercrime, has indicated that the complaints “are increasingly and persistently more numerous from year to year” and represent only a portion of all the reports that are received by all the services of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

“Every year, many more complaints are received than in the previous year”, the PGR stated in the 16-page document. The first substantial increase occurred in 2020, during the pandemic in which 544 reports were received, while in the following year, the number more than doubled to 1,160.

Over the past two years, the complaints have surged by 36 percent, with 2,916 cases in 2023, and 3,973 in 2024. The PGR highlighted this increase in its newly released strategy, describing cybercrime as a phenomenon of “continuous and clear expansion”.

This category of crime includes scams such as the “Hello, Mom; Hello, Dad” fraud, fake invoice payment schemes, fraudulent clothing websites, and counterfeit government pages.

The PGR stressed the urgency of responding more swiftly and efficiently to complaints, given that many scams involve websites that disappear quickly, there is need for “immediate action” to preserve evidence and halt criminal activities.

In addition to speed, the PGR argues that the traditional model of opening a separate inquiry for each complaint is ineffective for cybercrime. Since these cases do not typically involve organised crime and multiple victims across the country may be linked to the same scam.