Sec. 2. Findings
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/bill/119/hr/5490/ih/section-2·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress makes the following findings: During the COVID–19 pandemic, Chinese criminal organizations active in Southeast Asia pivoted to a new and potent form of financial scam involving elaborate fraudulent online cryptocurrency investment schemes. The most common form of such financial scam is known as pig butchering , Chinese criminal slang that describes how scammers develop a virtual relationship inducing them to invest ever larger sums into phony platforms, serving to ‘fatten’ their victims for the slaughter.
Crime syndicates use the forced labor of hundreds of thousands of victims of human trafficking to perpetrate such scams. These victims themselves fall prey to false job advertisements before they are taken to a compound and forced to meet aggressive scam quotas under pain of violent punishment if they refuse. These so-called scam centers are most prevalent across Burma, Laos, and Cambodia, corrupt and repressive countries where transparency is absent, rule of law is anemic and checks and balances are non-existent, and often operate as joint ventures between the Chinese criminal groups organizations and the autocratic governments.
Since 2021, these scams have increasingly targeted Americans, robbing thousands of their life savings and enriching and entrenching transnational criminal syndicates and corrupt leaders in Cambodia, Laos and Burma. American losses to these scams grew by 33 percent year-on-year in 2024. According to the Department of Treasury, Americans lost at least $10,000,000,000 from these operations in 2024 alone. Global losses are estimated to be higher than $60,000,000,000 annually. The true dollar amount of losses to these scams is estimated to be much higher as many instances go unreported.
Troubling links exist between the People’s Republic of China, Chinese criminal scam syndicates, and the corrupt local politicians enabling their rise.