Washington: Americans lost at least $10 billion in 2024 to China-linked scam networks operating from Southeast Asia, top Congressmen have alleged warning that this fraud ecosystem has grown into a national security threat.
House Select Committee on China Chairman, John Moolenaar said the scams were being run at “industrial scale” by criminal groups linked to China and enabled by corruption, weak governance and illicit finance.
“These victims are our families, neighbours and friends, and they are being ripped off by sophisticated criminal networks linked to China,” Moolenaar said.
The committee released a bipartisan investigative report that said the scam networks were not isolated criminal enterprises, but part of a larger ecosystem of fraud, human trafficking, cyber crime and illicit finance.
Moolenaar said the Chinese government did not centrally direct the scam compounds, but its “deliberate failure to combat this threat” had enabled their growth.
Ranking member Ro Khanna said many scam networks operate from compounds in Southeast Asia controlled by organised criminal groups with links to China.
“All too often, the person on the other end of the text is a human trafficking victim, locked in a scam compound with instructions to steal as much money from victims as possible,” the Indian American Congressman said.
He said the committee investigation found that the headquarters of Prince Group in Cambodia was constructed by a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
“I want to be clear. While there are Chinese ties, the scam is not a vast conspiracy by the Chinese government,” Khanna said. “We can’t solve this crisis without their cooperation.”
Erin West, founder of Operation Shamrock, told lawmakers that victims were not getting adequate help from law enforcement.
“Why in the United States in 2026, are victims having to solve their own crimes?” she quoted one victim as asking.
West called the crisis a “Scamdemic” and said it was “not simply fraud”.
“This is national security,” she said.
Jacob Sims, an independent analyst, said the deeper threat was not only the compounds but “the political architecture that protects it”.
He described Cambodia as “an advanced case of what criminal authoritarianism looks like in the digital era”.
Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said China’s domestic crackdown had pushed scam networks abroad.
“This is not a Southeast Asia problem. This is a global China problem,” Tower said.
Lawmakers also pressed witnesses on the role of social media platforms, cryptocurrency networks and private companies in enabling the scams.
Moolenaar urged Congress to pass the bipartisan Dismantle Foreign Scam Syndicates Act. The measure would create an inter-agency task force to counter foreign scam syndicates.
(IANS)
