Fraud crimes have increased by over 70% in the past year, according to the latest crime figures released by the Central Statistics Office.
The CSO said this is largely driven by unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.
Sex offences also increased by 10%, while there were reductions in burglary, theft, and robbery compared to the same period last year.
Gardaí recorded over 500 offences for breaches of Covid-19 regulations, while the CSO also says the impact of the cancelled 999 calls has still to be determined.
Today's crime figures in some way reflect the increased restrictions in movement and interpersonal contact with reductions in traditional crime and increases in technology-based criminality.
Over 13,500 frauds were recorded in the 12 months to last September, an increase of 72%.
The increase was driven by such crimes as phishing and smishing, unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal and bank details - online or by phone.
Reported sexual offences increased by 10% but organised crime offences were down with reductions in drugs and gun crime and 15 fewer cases of murder or manslaughter over the same period.
There were also significant decreases in burglary (-36%), theft (-20%) and robbery (-18%).
There were 516 breaches of Covid-19 regulation offences recorded between June and September of this year, which is lower than previous quarters.
The crime figures are again published "under reservation", meaning the CSO is not fully confident of the accuracy of the garda figures with an additional concern this quarter because of the inappropriate cancellation of 999 calls, which could result in some crimes reported to gardaí not recorded on the PULSE system.
