Time to Confront Industrialized Cyber Scams Targeting the Vulnerable
By Paul Steidler: Ever wonder where those daily and more frequent scam calls originate from? Increasingly, the answer is a foreign-based, sophisticated, industrialized facility where victims of human trafficking use sophisticated technology in well-organized campaigns to fleece America’s elderly and others.
The Wall Street Journal documented these trends in an April 21 front-page story, “How Cybercrime Became a Leading Industry in ‘Scambodia’.” Cambodia is one of several countries with rampant industrialized scam operations.
The story said, “U.S. authorities estimated annual revenue from (Cambodian) scam syndicates was as high as $19 billion – equivalent to nearly 40% of the country’s gross domestic product.” It adds, “Americans alone lost $10 billion to online fraud originating from Southeast Asia in 2024, according to U.S. government data. That figure represented a 66% increase from the previous year.”
Earlier, on April 7, the Associated Press reported on a tour given by Thailand’s military of the O’Smach Resort complex in Cambodia, on its border with Thailand. The 197-acre facility, equivalent to 150 American football fields, had 29 buildings for scam operations. The U.N. Office on Human Rights estimates that there are approximately 300,000 workers in the scam industry.
Importantly, U.S. policymakers are acting.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson testified on this at an April 15 hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation during questioning from Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO).
“We cannot overstate how big an overseas problem this is for us,” said Ferguson. “Many of these scams are lobbed in by foreigners in call centers and other operations in parts of the world where they don’t bat an eye at the risk of civil enforcement from the FTC,” said Ferguson.
While AI is being used to accelerate these scams, it is also being used to confront them, including by helping warn the most likely victims.
Chair Ferguson discussed how the FTC has a “great relationship with the FCC,” the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is proposing new regulations to make it evident when a call originates from overseas and to prevent it from being masked by a domestic number.
The FTC has also reminded credit card processors about their legal obligations to guard against fraud originating overseas. It has undertaken a large public awareness campaign about scams. U.S. sanctions against scammers and traditional law enforcement with foreign countries will also become increasingly important. It is clear that the scammers’ resources are vast, and their operations are growing more sophisticated. Fighting these scams will be increasingly important in 2026 and require new and creative tactics, coupled with sizable enforcement dollars. This issue is important to Americans, regardless of party affiliation, and merits bipartisan support.