Virtually everyone in the United States has been targeted for some kind of scam. A tiny share of these attempts succeed, but the losses still run into the billions. The perpetrators are increasingly part of criminal rings operating outside the United States. That has transformed scams from an annoyance to a national security threat. Washington needs to meet this threat with action.
The threat assessment published by the U.S. Department of National Intelligence earlier this year references “fraud scams” as one element of “criminal activity threatening the United States.” Scams are increasingly carried out by so-called transnational criminal organizations and state-affiliated groups. They are also involved with human trafficking, drug trafficking, and weapons smuggling.
The FBI says that the groups carrying out international scams accumulate so much money that it can “compromise legitimate economies and have a direct impact on governments through the corruption of public officials.” What’s more, says the FBI, these groups pose “a significant and growing threat to national and international security with dire implications for public safety, public health, democratic institutions, and economic stability across the globe.”
The Aspen Institute describes the perpetrators as a murderer’s row of bad guys: “North Korean hackers, Mexican cartels, Russian crime syndicates, and Chinese gangs.”
Not the kind of people you’d want to meet in a dark alley – or online.
Last year, Americans lost more than $10 billion to scams just based in Southeast Asia, reports the U.S. Treasury. That’s a 66 percent increase over the previous year.
Fraudsters target their victims everywhere, but they like the Meta-owned platforms of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It’s easy to see why – those platforms are home to about four billion active users, which is about half the world’s entire population. And Meta has taken a lax attitude to cracking down on scams that target its users.
That conclusion stems from a recent in-depth investigation by Reuters, which revealed that Meta’s platforms are home to 15 billion fraudulent ads every day. The company, reports Reuters, “failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads [for] . . . fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.”
Why the inaction? Perhaps because Meta earns about $7 billion in annualized revenue from what it labels “higher risk” scam ads. The Reuters article had other eye-popping findings:
- “A May 2025 presentation by [Meta’s] safety staff estimated that the company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the U.S.”
- “In Britain, a regulator last year said it found that Meta’s products were involved in 54% of all payments-related scam losses in 2023, more than double all other social platforms combined.”
- “Meta also was ignoring the vast majority of user reports of scams, a document from 2023 indicates. By that year, safety staffers estimated that Facebook and Instagram users each week were filing about 100,000 valid reports of fraudsters messaging them, the document says. But Meta ignored or incorrectly rejected 96% of them.”
Meta clearly needs to get its fraud prevention house in order. And there’s a clear role for the federal government as well, given that the scammers are tied to America’s enemies.
Washington is finally taking the threat seriously. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro recently announced the establishment of the first District of Columbia Scam Center Strike Force to target a growing epidemic of crypto fraud organized and conducted by criminal syndicates, particularly from China. Likewise, Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho has introduced bipartisan legislation, the Task Force for Recognizing and Averting Payments Scams (TRAPS) Act, that would create a task force to combat the growing incidence of payment scams.
Given the transnational nature of the scams, Washington will also need to cooperate with law enforcement in other countries. A recent example of that cooperation was the U.S. coordinating with the United Kingdom to target criminal networks that have targeted American citizens and citizens of allied nations through online scams and the laundering of stolen funds.
In this particular action, taken last month, the U.S. Treasury imposed sweeping sanctions on 146 targets within a Cambodia-based transnational criminal empire that operates online investment scams. And Treasury cut off from the U.S. financial system a Cambodia-based financial services conglomerate, Huione Group, as it has laundered proceeds of virtual currency scams and heists.
A focused federal strategy, which recognizes the national security threat posed by scams, can deliver the resources needed to meet this threat. It will also be a signal to private-sector companies — particularly Meta — to prioritize scam prevention. Naming and shaming companies that turn a blind eye to scams should be part of the arsenal.
Scammers are merciless — often preying on the most vulnerable among us, from children to senior citizens. The implications are grave. Transnational organized crime, says the FBI, “jeopardizes our border security, endangers our health through human trafficking and counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and seeks to corrupt officials domestically and abroad.”
Intensifying the crackdown on the world’s cyber crooks can’t happen soon enough.
Col. Robert L. Maness (Ret), host of The Rob Maness Show on X, is a 32-year United States Air Force combat veteran, where he served as commander of the 377th Air Base Wing, Kirtland Air Force Base. He was a member of the Trump Campaign’s Veterans and Military Families for Trump Coalition. Follow him on X @RobManess.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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