Taking on Scammers
In communities across the district, people are losing millions of dollars to internet scammers. Carleigh is partnering with local government leaders like US Army Veteran and forensic accountant Aleks Ring to educate people, especially seniors, about how to protect themselves from online fraudsters.
In Congress Carleigh will fight to restore funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and expand its mandate to protect and defend consumers from fraud.
Read more about how local leaders in Hampton are fighting back against scammers.
Crypto Scams Are Funding Slavery and Foreign Enemies — Overregulation Won’t Stop It
In 2024, Americans lost $16.6 billion to cybercrime, a 33% increase from the year before. Crypto scams alone made up $12.4 billion of those losses, a staggering 66% spike. These numbers are only what was reported to the FBI IC3, which they estimate is only about 34% of actual crime occurring. This isn’t a typo. It’s a full-scale financial assault on American consumers: retirees, veterans, and young investors alike.
Locally, in New Hampshire, Sen. Hassan recently highlighted state statistics:
In 2024, Granite Staters lost nearly $53 million to thousands of online scams nearly twice the $27 million that residents lost in 2023 and more than seven times the $7.2 million that residents lost in 2019.
Residents aged 60 and over accounted for more than $15 million of the total losses in New Hampshire (N.H.) in 2024.
In N.H., criminals have impersonated law enforcement, the New Hampshire DMV, tech support, and more.
So what’s Washington’s plan? Ban crypto? Over regulate it? Or give out Wall Street, Big Tech and Big Banks the biggest handout since 2008 bailout? The latter just happened in Washington DC, during the “crypto week.”
But let’s talk about what we actually need to do to protect Americans from the real threat: organized criminal networks, especially those operating from Southeast Asia, backed by the Chinese Communist Party.
The Numbers
The 2024 stats from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) are a five-alarm fire:
149,686 crypto-related complaints filed
$12.4 billion in losses from crypto scams
41,557 pig butchering cases alone = $5.8 billion in losses
$2.8 billion in total losses just among seniors (age 60+)
Pig butchering among seniors? $1.6 billion stolen
Cyber-enabled fraud made up 38% of all complaints but 83% of all financial losses
Call center–linked scams, often overseas: $1.9 billion in losses
The FBI’s Financial Fraud Kill Chain was only able to freeze $500 million, barely 3% of total losses. That’s not enforcement. This approach is not solving the problem.
Meanwhile in Cambodia: Modern Slavery, Backed by a Wink and a Nudge
Amnesty International’s 2025 report “I Was Someone Else’s Property” exposes the horrifying underbelly of these scams. In Cambodia alone:
At least 53 scamming compounds were confirmed across the country
All 423 victims identified by Amnesty were trafficked, most imprisoned, tortured, and forced to scam Westerners
In 2023, UNODC estimated 100,000 human trafficking victims in Cambodia, and 120,000 in Myanmar alone.
Some compounds had electric fencing, armed guards, and torture rooms
Children were among the trafficked, some as young as 12
Victims were “sold” between compounds
Many scam victims in the U.S. are unknowingly speaking to people who are themselves slaves
Cambodian state response? Mostly performative. Only 2 of the 53 compounds were fully shut down.
The Chinese criminal networks behind these scams didn’t build this alone. They leveraged existing casino and tourism infrastructure, much of it Chinese-owned, and repurposed it for online fraud, with zero meaningful resistance from the Cambodian government.
Additionally, Belt and Road Initiative, launched by China in 2013, is designed to:
Dethrone the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency
Establish military and surveillance footprint in strategic places around the world, such as Djibouti, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (all places where U.S. military has or has had presence)
Weaponized debt diplomacy that over-lends to fragile states, knowing they won’t be able to pay back (exactly what happened to Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, where China secured a 99-year lease after Sri Lanka couldn’t pay the loan for construction of the port)
This isn’t just cybercrime. It’s human trafficking, modern slavery, a generational wealth transfer to China, and it directly affects U.S. national security and consumer safety.
So Why Is Overregulation a Bad Fix?
When governments respond with brute force crypto regulation, here's what happens:
Scammers don’t care about laws. They operate offshore, in countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. They are not U.S. citizens and are not concerned with our regulations of crypto.
Innovation suffers. Startups and responsible crypto platforms move offshore to avoid overly burdensome laws.
Consumers lose access to legitimate tools that could help protect them, like self-custody wallets, on-chain analytics, and decentralized recovery mechanisms.
Law enforcement and regulators end up chasing ghost wallets while ignoring the actual enablers: unregulated or poorly regulated exchanges, corrupt regimes, and human trafficking networks.
What We Should Be Doing
We don’t need to reinvent the blockchain. We need to update our laws, our diplomacy, and our enforcement approach.
Consumer Protection
Mandate clear disclosures for crypto investment platforms.
Regulate Crypto Kiosks (ATMs), which are currently destroying communities such as NH Seacoast.
Hampton NH has over 30 Crypto ATMs in 15-mile radius, and average user is 67.
Require social media platforms to monitor and remove scam ads impersonating brands, people and infiltrating groups, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, X (to name a few).
Require telecommunication companies to monitor and enforce better KYC guidelines, that will reduce SIM farms, phishing and smishing scams, mass-spam and robocall traffic.
Expand public education campaigns about pig butchering and tech support scams.
Enforce KYC/AML compliance for all platforms operating in U.S. markets. This includes crypto exchanges, banks and big tech companies who are looking into issuing stablecoins.
National Security & Foreign Policy
Sanction known crypto scam facilitators and enablers in Cambodia, China, and elsewhere.
Pressure Southeast Asian governments through diplomatic and economic tools to shut down scam compounds.
Work with Interpol and allies to classify scam compounds as transnational organized crime zones, with coordinated raids, arrests and help for human trafficking victims.
Launch a joint task force between DHS, DOJ, and State to address the national security threat of foreign scam operations.
Survivor & Victim Support
Provide restitution mechanisms for scam victims, especially elderly and vulnerable populations.
Establish bilateral repatriation and trauma recovery programs for enslaved scam workers.
Fund NGO efforts to investigate and assist with rescues from compounds.
Crypto Isn’t the Enemy. Criminals Are.
Crypto is just the tool. The real threat is the organized criminal machinery abusing it, and the governments letting them operate with impunity.
We don’t need more fear-driven crackdowns. We need laws that treat scam victims like victims.
We need to treat trafficking victims like victims. And we need to treat the Chinese-backed crime networks exploiting all of them as the national security threat they truly are.