In April, the National Association of Attorneys General held its annual Symposium in the beautiful city of Nashville, Tennessee. Two of the panels were particularly relevant to the consumer protection community. Ken Westbrook with the Stop Scams Alliance shared information about how other countries are combatting the multi-billion-dollar cybercrime industry through coordinating information and resources. Consumers are estimated to have lost $158 billion dollars last year, far exceeding the $5 billion dollars in reported losses. Australia’s National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC), a virtual center within the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, uses a whole-of-government approach, working closely with law enforcement, regulators, consumer groups, and industry (finance, telecommunications, and social media). NASC’s three main functions are collaboration, disruption, and consumer awareness and protection. Examples of its success include a 35% reduction in investment scam losses and the removal of over 10,000 investment scam websites and online advertisements in 2024. Australia shares its scam data and intelligence with the Federal Trade Commission. It has also produced “The Little Book of Scams” that consolidates information about scams in plain language for consumers and is available in over 17 languages.
In the United Kingdom, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) removes malicious URLs in less than 6 hours- on average. Launched in 2017, the Active Cyber Defence (ACD) works to counter cyber threats while removing the burden of action from users. While the UK was reducing the median uptime for cryptocurrency scam sites to one hour, cryptocurrency scams still increased by 16% and accounted for 66% of all reports. Crypto scam losses increased 53% in the United States as reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2023 with the United States leading the top 20 countries with over $4.8 billion in losses from complaint with a cryptocurrency nexus compared to the UK’s $59 million. In 2023, IC3 received more than 5,500 complaints reporting the use of cryptocurrency kiosks, with losses over $189 million, and complaints from those over 60 years old amounting to $124 million of the reported losses. 2023 IC3 Cryptocurrency Report. Erin West, founder of the nonprofit Operation Shamrock, spoke about the growth of the pig butchering industry and the staggering infrastructure and systems being built in Dubai and Myanmar using human trafficking victims being forced to work as scammers in prison-like complexes. Traffickers often pose as job recruiters, targeting those with exploitable skills and knowledge with promises of attractive salaries in resort cities. However, the scam operators confiscate the victims’ passports, hold the victims far from assistance, and manipulate workers’ debt to prevent workers from escaping. Westbrook and West both made the case that the cybercrime industry’s nimble shift to targeting vulnerable United States victims with increasingly sophisticated scams presents a strategic opportunity for state attorneys general to meet these threats with robust cybersecurity measures to disincentivize human trafficking and ensure a safer digital landscape for all.
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The Center for Consumer Protection invites the submission of articles for publication in the monthly newsletter. Articles should be about consumer issues, summaries of federal or state attorney general enforcement actions, court decisions, or other items involving consumer issues that may be of interest to the consumer protection charities, and military and veterans attorney general community. Please send proposed articles or topics to National Association of Attorneys General Consumer Counsel Kate Donoven at Kdonoven@naag.org.
