Last year, Americans Losses exceed $10 billion Sophisticated online scamming operations operate from Southeast Asia. Last week, the Justice Department $15 billion in Bitcoin seized From a Cambodia-based “forced labor scam complex,” Prince Holding Group.
These are not opportunistic internet cons. They are factories of industrial fraud – complex complexes run by China-born international crime syndicates, protected by corrupt officials and the formal institutions they control, and powered by the forced labor of thousands of human trafficking victims lured from nearly 80 countries. And they are now one of the largest forms of financial crime affecting Americans.
Congress is finally drawing a line. ABipartisan bill in the Senatehad a bipartisan supportState Department Reauthorization Amendmentand a relatedstandalone bill in the houseAll clearly call this incident what it is: a serious threat to US national security.
The urgency could not be clearer. Scam groups in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos have transformed into massive criminal empires, running crypto fraud, romance scams, online gambling, money laundering and even child-sextortion rackets on an unprecedented scale.
They deliberately target Americans: our bank accounts are tempting targets, our cybersecurity is weak and Beijing has proven happy to look the other way, as long as the victims are Chinese.
Over the past four years, the three of us have spoken to countless trafficking survivors who were lured by fake job advertisements, then beaten, starved, or tortured after failing to meet their scam quota. We’ve heard from scores of Americans who have lost everything – life savings, retirement funds, homes – often on platforms that looked indistinguishable from legitimate platforms.
We’ve heard from law enforcement in the US and around the world about how they lack the tools to pursue money, track criminals and recover losses. And, we have delved deeper into the investigation into organized crime groups, the criminal states and warlords that support them, and the insidious geopolitical currents that keep the entire racket operating.
Corruption runs in every direction, it is: slavery and torture for trafficking, financial ruin for those involved in the scam and their families, endless enrichment for crime bosses and their sovereign supporters who are systematically turning their countries into de facto scam states.
Abolish Foreign Scam Syndicate ActSpecifically, tackles the problem at its root. It mandates the creation of a national task force headed by the Secretary of State to remove bureaucratic hurdles.
This forces a comprehensive national strategy. Critically, it names a long list of known criminal groups and demands real accountability for themPrince Group and Huion of Cambodiaand Myanmar’sYatai IHG Andall light groupas well as local elite co-conspirators who have enabled them to operate with impunity for a very long time.
Of course, all this will cost money. But the returns are clear: billions of lives saved, lives liberated, and American influence restored in a region where crime has become the dominant economic engine and weapon of statecraft.
If Americans demand it, Congress will act. Your member needs to hear from you today.
Urge them to sponsor the Dismantle Foreign Scam Syndicate Act in the House or the Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization Act in the Senate and join the Anti-Scam Caucus. Without determined action, these massive financial crimes against Americans will continue unchecked.
The region’s thriving scam economy will not collapse on its own. The countries at the epicenter have become too big to fail and Beijing is actively instrumentalizing the crisis for its own purposes, placing costs directly on American citizens in the process. We will certainly need partners, but the responsibility lies with America
If our government is truly serious about making Americans safer, stronger, and more secure, there is no clearer test case than this.
jacob simsHe is a fellow at the Asia Center of Harvard University.Erin WestFounder and CEO of Operation Shamrock.jason towerHe is a visiting fellow at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.
