S2950-119

What This Bill Does

The Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization Act would require the Secretary of State, consulting Justice and Treasury, to submit a global strategy within 180 days of enactment. An interagency task force must follow within 90 days after strategy submission. Beginning 180 days after enactment, the President may impose asset-blocking sanctions on foreign persons determined to materially support, own, control, direct or act for significant scam-compound operations or enabling services. Sanctions are discretionary and person-specific, not automatic restrictions on all residents of a country discussed in the findings. The entire Act expires seven years after enactment, and the task force separately ends six years after establishment.

Who Benefits and How

Victims of cyber-enabled fraud, people at risk of fraudulent recruitment and survivors of trafficking or forced criminality are the intended beneficiaries of prevention, partner coordination and survivor-support efforts. The strategy must address recruitment fraud, online-platform engagement, awareness, partner-government capacity, corruption, money laundering and relevant PRC connections; survivor support is directed through the Ambassador at Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Survivor-support organizations and partner law-enforcement agencies could gain coordination, but the bill provides no specified new aid appropriation. A Justice Department report due within 90 days must recommend changes that could let forfeited assets support redress to U.S. citizen victims. It does not itself create a victim payment fund or entitlement.

Who Bears the Burden and How

State, Justice and Treasury bear strategy, task-force, consultation and reporting duties, and the President must report sanctioned persons and designation dates every 180 days beginning at day 180. Designated foreign scam operators and facilitators face blocked property and transactions where a U.S. jurisdictional connection exists, potentially including beneficially owned vessels. U.S. financial-services providers handling affected transactions would face sanctions-compliance work, and violations, attempts, conspiracies or causing violations trigger the referenced IEEPA civil and criminal penalty framework. Authorized U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement activities are excepted. The sanctions provision does not authorize sanctions on the importation of goods.

Key Provisions

• Requires a 180-day global strategy identifying enabling and impacted countries, existing relevant foreign assistance, needed resources, performance indicators and prevention and survivor-support measures.
• Establishes a task force within 90 days after the strategy, with public annual status reviews starting within one year of establishment and a possible classified annex; ends the task force after six years.
• Authorizes discretionary property-blocking sanctions beginning at day 180 and applies IEEPA enforcement penalties, while excepting covered intelligence and authorized U.S. law-enforcement activities and excluding import-of-goods sanctions authority.
• Permits national-interest sanctions waivers with congressional notice at least 15 days beforehand; notice must identify the beneficiary and, for an individual, explain the national-security justification.
• Requires a 90-day assessment of forfeiture-law barriers and recommendations for U.S.-citizen victim redress, without authorizing disbursement of forfeited assets under this bill.
• Provides a seven-year sunset for the entire Act and preserves the strategy limitation against creating obligations for U.S. or State law-enforcement and U.S. intelligence activities.