Americans reported nearly $18 billion in cyberfraud losses to the FBI in 2025, while a congressional investigation found that federal efforts to combat overseas scam networks remain fragmented and poorly tracked.

The report, released on October 27 by Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, found no unified government accounting of money seized from foreign scam operations or returned to victims. Agencies provided figures covering different periods and categories, making the results hard to compare.

The FBI reported returning $336 million to scam victims in 2025, and the Federal Trade Commission returned $1.83 billion to fraud victims that fiscal year but could not identify how much involved overseas scam compounds.

Investigators also flagged the elimination of an American program that trained law enforcement in Bangladesh, an emerging hub for scam operations. The State Department maintained that it has sufficient tools to address the threat internationally. The report urged Congress to establish a coordinated federal strategy, create a central resource for victims, and strengthen cooperation with technology, telecommunications, and financial services companies nationwide.

The government’s accounting gaps are making an expensive problem harder to assess. While announcing a seizure demonstrates enforcement activity, it says little about how much victims recover or how effectively agencies disrupt criminal operations. Without comparable figures, lawmakers cannot readily identify which efforts deserve more money and which need changing…

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The private sector poses another problem. Scam networks exploit services supplied by legitimate technology companies, telecommunications providers, and financial institutions. These businesses sit at different points along the route from initial contact to completed payment, and fragmented cooperation leaves opportunities for suspicious activity to pass between them without an effective response.

Requiring companies to bear more responsibility could strengthen their incentive to intervene. However, it would also force lawmakers to decide what reasonable prevention requires and where liability should end. Poorly designed rules run the risk of burdening legitimate transactions without stopping determined criminals.

Additionally, overseas enforcement depends partly on local investigators. Ending training in an emerging scam hub risks weakening that capacity just as criminal networks expand. A domestic reporting overhaul would help victims navigate Washington, but it cannot replace the work of pursuing perpetrators abroad.

Retirement or investment savings can disappear while ordinary bills keep arriving. Recovering even part of that money months later doesn't undo the financial decisions people are forced to make in the meantime. The uncertainty also changes how people use legitimate services. Every time convincing fraud arrives through familiar platforms, trust becomes another casualty, leaving customers more wary of genuine messages and offers.

Once stolen money moves overseas, victims depend on investigations they cannot control and recoveries they cannot count on, making intervention before a payment clears especially valuable. Banks, technology companies, and federal agencies each see part of a scam. Connecting those pieces while the money is still within reach would give Americans a far better chance of keeping it.