ICYMI: Tech, Telecom Leaders Sound Alarm on Rising Cyber-Enabled Financial Crime by International Criminal Networks

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This week, the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection convened a hearing to examine how transnational criminal organizations are weaponizing emerging technologies to target Americans, businesses, and our critical infrastructure.

Witness testimony was provided by Cynthia Kaiser, Senior Vice President of Halcyon Ransomware Research Center; Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs; Joshua Bercu, Senior Vice President of Policy at USTelecom - The Broadband Association; and Megan Stifel, Chief Strategy Officer of the Institute for Security and Technology.

Witnesses warned that criminal networks are increasingly relying on cyber-enabled financial crime to fund their illicit activities, posing a growing risk to American financial systems, public safety, and the resilience of vulnerable sectors, including healthcare. Witnesses agreed that the U.S. must leverage American innovation to stay ahead of these threats, strengthen public-private sector coordination and information sharing, and enforce tougher penalties to deter cybercrime.

In his opening statement, Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) highlighted how criminal organizations are expanding their use of digital platforms to steal from Americans and finance their illicit enterprises. He called on Congress to take decisive measures to strengthen cyber border security:

"Most Americans have encountered some sort of scam enabled by technology. These scams often target our aging and elderly families and constituents - seeking to drain their life savings and retirement plans using emotional manipulation tactics. In 2025 alone, scammers stole more than $20 billion from Americans."

"Criminal networks use the digital domain to promote their illicit activities. Mexican drug trafficking organizations are increasingly leveraging cryptocurrency in order to launder their ill-gotten gains. The challenging nature of tracing cryptocurrency provides a landscape where Mexican drug cartels and other criminal organizations can launder money by converting profits from illegal activities into digital currency, which can be accessed across the world in a matter of seconds."

"Our critical infrastructure, our data, and our constituents must be protected - Congress must step up to secure our virtual border. President Trump's recent executive order identifying cyber-enabled crime as a priority and pushing an offensive approach on combatting cybercrime, is a positive step but must be built upon. Given the role of industry, public private partnerships are critical to facing these threats head-on. It is important that Congress examine how transnational criminal organizations are exploiting digital technologies and targeting Americans."

In his opening statement, Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Chairman Andy Ogles (R-TN) detailed how many of the online scams targeting Americans are backed by nation-state adversaries like China and Russia. He underscored the risks and strategic potential of AI in mitigating cyber threats:

"What is happening to Americans right now is an industrial-scale criminal campaign, coordinated by transnational criminal organizations that operate sophisticated fraud networks spanning multiple continents and targeting millions of victims simultaneously. These operations combine cyber fraud, money laundering, cryptocurrency manipulation, digital extortion, and in many documented cases, human trafficking and forced labor."

"These networks are deeply connected to organized transnational syndicates, many run by organized crime groups with roots in the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation. Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked into scam compounds across Southeast Asia, forced to carry out fraud under threat of violence and death. Chinese nationals and PRC-linked triads operate the largest compounds, and Beijing has been slow to act against networks that victimize Americans while generating billions along China's periphery."

"The American people deserve a government that fights for them with the same intensity that these criminal networks use against them. Our witnesses today will help us understand the full scope of this threat and the tools we need to combat it. I look forward to their testimony."

In her written testimony , Ms. Stifel urged Congress to extend vital cybersecurity authorities, as championed by Committee Chairman Andrew R. Garbarino (R-NY) and Subcommittee Chairman Ogles :

"This committee has produced effective legislation that has improved the nation's cybersecurity posture; it should not be allowed to expire. In particular, Congress should reauthorize: The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which expires on September 30, 2026, and which enables the free flow of cyber threat indicators among the private sector and between the private sector and government. The State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2021, which expires on September 30, 2026, and which provides assistance to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments to develop and execute against strategies to improve their cybersecurity."

Subcommittee Chairman Guest asked about the threat posed by malicious cyber actors targeting American hospitals and vulnerable patients with ransomware, to which Ms. Kaiser testified:

"The law defines terrorism as acts dangerous to human life, intended to coerce a civilian population. I think that encrypting hospital systems and demanding ransoms while patients are being diverted meets that definition… There's no penalty too strong for the individuals that are holding Americans' lives at risk. They're making calculated decisions to target these individuals."

Subcommittee Chairman Ogles asked about the growing risks stemming from transnational criminal networks' increased use of AI, to which witnesses testified:

Ms. Kaiser: "We see predominantly adversaries using AI to gain that initial step into company networks. What I mean by that, it's easier to lie with AI. It's easier to make convincing emails with malicious links. It's easier to make these deep fakes, these fake videos or fake voice calls that trick companies into letting them on the network. And then it's easier to exploit vulnerabilities or find vulnerabilities… Advanced adversaries are integrating AI. They're looking at it in a way in which businesses are today for efficiencies. But there's a world of people who couldn't do attacks yesterday. They can today."

Mr. Redborg: "First, our adversaries are using it at scale. I mentioned a 500% increase in AI-enabled fraud and scams. We see ransomware actors using agents as affiliates really for the first time. We're seeing North Korea use it to launder the proceeds of billion-dollar crypto hacks. But the other part that sort of I'm most focused on at TRM, we're working with the Department of Justice, with the Treasury Department, with the FBI, IRS-CI, DEA, Secret Service, to provide AI-enabled tools that allow us to move as fast… Bad actors are always early adopters of transformative technology. Think automobiles, end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, crypto, and now AI. We need to move as fast as those bad actors, and the tools exist today."

Mr. Bercu: "It really enables improvement of the quality of the scam and really helps that. It makes [it that] more people are able to do the scams now that the equipment, but it also increases the scale and what we see in the calling side. That said, similarly, our folks are using AI. They've long used machine learning automation… Some of our tools actually still work well in an AI world, but we're continuing to evolve as well."

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC) asked how the federal government can best partner with the private sector to protect Americans' most sensitive data, to which Mr. Redborg testified:

"Over the last, you know, couple of years, I think we've seen a real willingness from the public sector to be working much more closely with the private sector. And part of this is because we move very, very fast. And whether that means ensuring that the government has the data they need, we have it, or we can go out and get it, and we provide it. So, I think it's the real key here to solving this is working really, really closely together to ensure that the authorities and the data are all there to take on this threat… When bad actors are leveraging technology, we need to make sure that every investigator has the AI technology, the blockchain intelligence, the things that they need."

Rep. Knott also asked how conflict with Iran affects our cybersecurity posture, to which witnesses testified:

Ms. Kaiser: "It's absolutely a national security issue. I think that countering cyber threats from wherever they come is really the national security challenge of our lifetime… We've seen Iran, we've seen China, we've seen Russia, we've seen North Korea actually use these cybercriminal tactics, use the same infrastructure, use the same way in which the criminal groups are targeting us to actually conduct attacks on American networks. That's happened in the Iranian conflict right now. And so, it's really important to look at this all as a connected system and understand that disrupting one component disrupts others.

Mr. Redborg: "It's the absolutely most important shift in the posture in recent history, moving from law enforcement to national security. The reality is that wars are now fought in cyberspace and across blockchains, and we have to leverage every national security piece that we can, offensive and defensive."

Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) asked how Americans can avoid digital scams, to which Mr. Bercu testified:

"Any of us could be a victim. I mean, I work on these issues, and I was under the spell for a few seconds when I got a message that my account was accessed from Russia. So, it can happen to any of us… Take advantage of the tools that are out there. There's blocking, labeling. There's other things on the phone side. Use those."

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