Congressional hearing: scam operations now rival drug trade; lawmakers press DOJ, FBI and FTC for a national strategy and single reporting portal

Federal law‑enforcement and consumer‑protection officials testified at a Joint Economic Committee hearing that industrial‑scale scam operations are inflicting vast financial damage on American households and that advances in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency are increasing both scale and sophistication.

Senator Hassan, who convened the hearing, told the panel the scams are “an urgent economic danger” that can “empty bank accounts, steal life savings, and disrupt lives,” describing a constituent whose nearly‑80‑year‑old mother lost $80,000 after callers used an AI‑cloned voice to impersonate a family member.

Richard Goldberg, associate counsel in the Justice Department’s fraud section, described a global picture in which Southeast Asian scam compounds recruit and traffic people to operate scams aimed at U.S. victims. He said a leading blockchain‑analysis firm estimated $17 billion in global crypto investment fraud in 2025 and highlighted DOJ efforts including indictments and a high‑value cryptocurrency forfeiture.

Gregory Heb of the FBI said the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) logged more than 450,000 cyber‑scam complaints with reported losses exceeding $17.7 billion in 2025. Heb said adults 60 and older accounted for roughly a quarter of complaints and 42% of the losses reported to IC3, and summarized Operation Level Up, an FBI effort that has notified thousands of victims and identified hundreds of millions in potentially salvaged funds.

Karen Seafford, director of the Scam Center Strike Force at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.,…