S2544-119

What This Bill Does

The bill defines elder financial fraud, general financial fraud, pig butchering, scams, and eligible federal grant funds. It permits law enforcement agencies and grantees to use listed federal grants for analysts, training, blockchain tools, data collection, tabletop exercises, and financial-sector liaisons. It requires grantee reports to grantmaking agencies, a one-year Treasury and FinCEN report on fraud efforts, a two-year national scams report estimating attempts, losses, overseas actors, organized crime, impersonation, synthetic identities, enforcement, and spending, and annual agency reports to banking, financial services, and judiciary committees.

Who Benefits and How

Elderly individuals benefit because law enforcement can use existing federal grant funds for elder financial fraud investigations, victim assistance, and specialized training. Adults with disabilities benefit because elder financial fraud is defined to include illegal use of the resources of an adult with a disability. State law enforcement agencies benefit from explicit permission to spend eligible grants on analysts, tools, training, and financial-sector liaisons. Local law enforcement agencies benefit from clearer authority to use existing grants for pig-butchering and complex financial fraud investigations. Tribal law enforcement agencies benefit from the same eligible grant-use authority and coordination tools. Financial institutions benefit from designated liaisons and tabletop exercises that improve information sharing with investigators.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Law enforcement grantees must report how grant funds were used, fraud statistics, outcomes, and investigative capacity effects. Treasury and FinCEN must produce reports on financial fraud, pig butchering, elder financial fraud, scams, enforcement, losses, overseas actors, organized crime, and spending. Federal grantmaking agencies must issue annual reports to multiple congressional committees using grantee information. Scammers and fraud networks face higher investigation risk from trained personnel, blockchain tools, data collection, and financial-sector coordination.

Key Provisions

• Defines elder financial fraud, eligible federal grant funds, general financial fraud, pig butchering, scams, and state coverage.
• Allows eligible federal grants to fund analysts, agents, experts, training, software, blockchain tools, data reporting, tabletop exercises, and financial-sector liaisons.
• Requires grantees using funds for these purposes to report fund amounts, uses, fraud statistics, and investigative-capacity effects.
• Requires Treasury and FinCEN reports on fraud efforts and the state of scams in the United States.
• Requires annual reports by grantmaking agencies to banking, financial services, and judiciary committees.