Senators from both parties Thursday probed Trump administration officials about whether federal agencies and foreign governments are coordinated enough in the battle against scammers, something witnesses told the Foreign Relations Committee they were working to remedy.
At least 13 federal agencies have authorities to counter scams, raising questions about whether someone needs to be in charge of all those efforts. And while there was some bipartisan sentiment at Thursday’s hearing that the Trump administration has taken good actions to battle scammers, both lawmakers and administration officials said that scam operations have demonstrated that cracking down on them in one place often just leads to them going elsewhere.
Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., compared the situation to an international initiative that gained prominence in the 1990s to counter drug trafficking, Joint Interagency Task Force South.
“Given that today’s scam centers are similarly transnational, combining cybercrime, human trafficking, money laundering and cryptocurrency, has the threat reached the point that we should establish a comparable multinational coordination mechanism?” he asked.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., focused on federal coordination: She paraphrased a former federal official who said, “there is nobody that is heading that effort up across agencies. We need to treat this like combat, and so we need somebody in charge.”
Shaheen, the top Democrat on the panel, is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization (SCAM) Act, which seeks to unify federal efforts on the subject.
A State Department official told Shaeen scammers were a national security priority for President Donald Trump, and that his executive order on the topic sought to tackle coordination.
“I do understand that this is a whole-of-government approach, and many agencies are focused on this,” said David Bedard, deputy assistant secretary at State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs “The Action plan that was directed by the president is currently in the interagency review process to deconflict some of the concerns that you have raised. We certainly think the task force that will be implanted through the executive order will solve the problems you might be referencing.”
There’s also an international plan under the task force, he said. Currently, the administration shares intelligence on scammers with foreign allies, and Interpol has “productive” channels to work through there and is setting up its own task force, Bedard said, but there are concerns about other countries taking similar, duplicative action.
There have been signs of progress on the international front, Bedard and another State Department witness told the panel.
Michael DeSombre, assistant secretary at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said Trump has raised the subject with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and that China has used its influence in Asia as its own citizens have become scam victims. Still, there’s been more progress in countries where the United States has stronger relations, such as Cambodia, than in those where ties aren’t as close, like Burma and Laos.
In Cambodia, one key has been pursuing scam center bosses first and foremost, Bedard said.