A bunco squad is a police unit that investigates fraud, confidence schemes, and other crimes built on deception rather than force. The name is old, dating to the 1800s, and most departments have replaced it with labels like financial crimes unit or fraud division, but the job is the same: detectives who specialize in following money and taking apart schemes that patrol officers aren’t trained to unravel. The work has rarely been busier. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged nearly 860,000 fraud complaints in 2024, with reported losses of $16.6 billion.1Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2024 IC3 Annual Report
Where the Name Came From
“Bunco” started as the name of a dice-based gambling game that English gamblers brought to the United States in the mid-1850s, arriving first in San Francisco. The rules were quickly rigged against unsuspecting players, and the word became shorthand for any swindle that ran on fast talk and false trust. By the 1920s, bunco games were a fixture of gambling parlors and speakeasies in major cities, and the detectives assigned to break those operations up became known as bunco squads.
The term stretched well past dice. A bunco squad came to handle any crime where the perpetrator earned a victim’s confidence and then used it to take money or property. That is still the common thread, even though most agencies have retired the name. The Los Angeles Police Department ran a Bunco-Forgery Division for decades before renaming it the Financial Crimes Division in 1997 and later folding it into a Commercial Crimes Division. Other departments followed similar paths as the crimes themselves moved from face-to-face cons into wire transfers, email spoofing, and cryptocurrency.
What a Bunco Squad Investigates Today
Modern financial crimes units cover a wide range of offenses, and a single case often crosses several categories at once.
Confidence Schemes and Traditional Fraud
This is the original territory. A scammer poses as a contractor, a romantic interest, or an investment advisor, builds trust over weeks or months, and then asks for money. States prosecute these cases under names like fraud, swindling, and theft by deception, but the mechanics are the same: a victim is tricked into handing money or information over voluntarily. The same detectives also handle credit card fraud, check forgery, counterfeiting, mortgage fraud, and embezzlement, where someone entrusted with funds diverts them for their own use. These files tend to be paper-heavy, with investigators reconstructing months or years of transactions.
Elder Financial Exploitation
Fraud aimed at older adults is one of the fastest-growing categories these units handle. The FBI recorded more than 147,000 elder fraud complaints in 2024, with losses of nearly $4.9 billion, a 43% jump from the prior year.2Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Highlights Growing Number of Reported Elder Fraud Cases Common versions include tech support scams where a caller warns the victim’s computer has a virus, romance fraud through dating sites, and callers who impersonate government officials and demand immediate payment. Victims often lose retirement savings and are reluctant to report what happened.
Digital and Cryptocurrency Fraud
Financial crime has moved online at scale. Business email compromise, where a criminal impersonates a vendor or executive to redirect payments, is among the most damaging. The attack works by spoofing a legitimate email address with a tiny variation most people miss, or by using malware to watch a real billing conversation and insert fraudulent payment instructions at the right moment.3Federal Bureau of Investigation. Business Email Compromise
Cryptocurrency investment scams have surged too. In what law enforcement calls “pig butchering” schemes, a scammer makes contact through a text, dating app, or social media account, builds a relationship, and then steers the conversation toward a high-return crypto investment. The victim is directed to deposit funds through wire transfers or exchanges into accounts the scammer controls. When the victim tries to withdraw, the site demands more fees or locks the account, and the scammer disappears.4FDIC OIG. Pig Butchering Scams Investment-related fraud was the most expensive category in 2024, with nearly $5.7 billion in reported losses despite ranking fourth in complaint volume.5Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024
How the Work Actually Gets Done
Financial crime investigation is slower and more methodical than the detective work people usually picture. There is no car chase. There is a detective at a desk, building a paper trail that proves someone used deception to take money.
The foundation of almost every case is forensic accounting: a systematic analysis of financial records that identifies irregularities, traces where money went, and links transactions to specific people. Detectives reconstruct bank statements, invoices, tax returns, and digital payment histories to show the flow of money from a victim’s account through a chain of transfers to the suspect. Net worth analysis is another tool, comparing a suspect’s known income against their assets and spending to expose unexplained wealth.
Collaboration is constant because financial crimes rarely stay in one jurisdiction. A local embezzlement case can produce wire transfers that pull in federal investigators. A romance scam that originated overseas can require coordination with international law enforcement. The Federal Trade Commission feeds fraud reports into a shared database called the Consumer Sentinel Network, which civil and criminal investigators across the country can access.6Federal Trade Commission. ReportFraud.ftc.gov
What the Charges Look Like
When fraud crosses state lines or uses the mail, phones, or internet, it often becomes a federal case. Mail fraud carries up to 20 years in prison, rising to 30 years and a $1 million fine if the scheme targets a financial institution.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1341 – Frauds and Swindles Wire fraud uses the same structure when the scheme travels by wire, radio, or television.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1343 – Fraud by Wire, Radio, or Television Identity fraud can bring up to 15 years, or longer when tied to drug trafficking, violence, or terrorism.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1028 – Fraud and Related Activity in Connection With Identification Documents Money laundering can add another 20 years and a fine of $500,000 or twice the transaction amount, whichever is greater.10United States Department of Justice Archives. Criminal Resource Manual 2101 – Money Laundering Overview These charges stack, so a single scheme with fake identities, wire transfers, and laundered proceeds can produce several counts, each with its own maximum.
Convictions in federal fraud cases often come with mandatory restitution, meaning the judge must order the defendant to repay every dollar the victim lost. A court cannot waive that order because the defendant claims to be broke.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2327 – Mandatory Restitution
How to Reach a Bunco Squad
If you’ve been targeted, start with your local police or sheriff’s office. File a report in person, by phone, or through the department’s online reporting tool, and bring documentation: bank statements, emails, text messages, receipts, anything that shows what happened. Even if the current label on the office door says Financial Crimes Division or Fraud Unit, that is the squad you’re looking for.
Reporting to federal agencies in parallel is worth the extra effort. The FTC takes complaints at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and shares them nationwide through the Consumer Sentinel Network.12Federal Trade Commission. Why Report Fraud? The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov is the main federal intake point for cyber-enabled fraud, including investment scams, business email compromise, cryptocurrency fraud, and elder fraud, and in some cases IC3 can freeze stolen funds before they move out of reach.13Federal Bureau of Investigation. Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) No single report reaches every agency, so filing in more than one place improves the odds that your case gets attention.