U.S. District Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro today urged bankers to be “proactive” and work closely with law enforcement to fight the growing problem of financial fraud and scams orchestrated by transnational criminal organizations.
“The federal government, in combination with you in this room, can break an industry that is built to hide in the seams between countries and apps and bank wires,” said Pirro, who is head of the Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force.
Speaking at the American Bankers Association’s AML and Fraud Conference in Arlington, Virginia, Pirro said that overseas scam centers make as much as $40 billion a year for the transnational criminal organizations that run them. Many of those centers employ slave labor, with workers beaten and tortured if they don’t meet certain quotas, she said.
To fight scams, Pirro urged bankers to add “speed bumps,” saying that federal law allows banks to refuse or delay suspicious transactions, and to participate in information-sharing networks with other private entities and law enforcement. She also said bankers can reach out directly to the task force when they file a suspicious activity report they believe warrants special attention.
“Together, we can protect American families,” she said. “We can safeguard our financial system, and we can stop these outrageous criminal syndicates from exploiting our infrastructure and our people.”
