Moolenaar, Mast: Stronger Sanctions for CCP-Linked Scammers Preying on Americans
Yesterday, Chairmen John Moolenaar (R-MI) of the House Select Committee on China and Brian Mast (R-FL) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking for stronger sanctions against foreign individuals connected to online scam centers.
In the letter, Chairman Moolenaar and Chairman Mast write:
"Americans are being scammed online at enormous and still growing rates, due primarily to a network of Chinese transnational criminal organizations based in Southeast Asia} These criminal syndicates have built industrial-sized compounds devoted to perpetrating complex online seams, including cryptocurrency investment scams often known as 'pig butchering.' These operations exploit Americans' goodwill and good intentions through romance cons and other forms of devastating psychological manipulation."
Earlier this year, the House Select Committee on China completed a bipartisan investigation revealing a vast network of China-linked scam centers, and released a bipartisan report titled "Crime, Corruption, and Power: CCP-Linked Transnational Crime and the Rise of a Distributed Threat to U.S. National Security." Rather than direct state control or any state-backed conspiracy, the report concluded that Chinese governance and enforcement patterns have enabled the growth of these criminal networks. Their operations rely heavily on Chinese underground banking networks, cryptocurrency brokers, and shell companies to move and launder funds across borders. The report highlighted the widespread use of trafficked labor, with thousands of individuals coerced into conducting scams under threat of violence inside fortified compounds.
Combatting international crime is a priority of the Trump Administration, and protecting Americans from malicious scammers overseas will require a suite of measures ranging from sanctions, criminal indictments, asset seizures, reward offers, and executive orders. The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed H.R. 5490, the Dismantle Foreign Scam Syndicates Act, in December 2025, which would improve interagency coordination and strengthen the U.S. government response to the scam center crisis.
Read the full letter here.