Zachary Nunn

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Mr. Speaker, every family is now impacted by this. Every American knows someone who has come into contact with an AI fraud, a pig butchering scheme, a romance theft. Right now, criminals on the other side of the world are stealing the life savings of people in our own communities, and the local officers who answer those calls oftentimes can't even do anything about it. The money moves through digital currencies, including crypto, faster than anyone can even trace it. By the time a deputy who answers the call files a report, the life savings of that family, individual, or loved one is gone. I will share a story of what happened in my district in rural Iowa, of all places. A farmer in Wapello County was targeted through social media by an account posing as a Russian model. Over months, this Russian woman began to earn his trust and then took him for $1 million, including farm equipment that he had to mortgage. Over months, the people behind it further earned his trust. When they realized that he had money on his farm, in cash, they hired mercenaries on U.S. soil to drive from New York to a rural farmhouse in Iowa, where, when he refused to give up his cash, they opened fire on him. Due to this smart-thinking farmer locking himself in his barn and calling local law enforcement, his life was spared. His monetary loss was immeasurable. Sheriff Don Phillips of Wapello and his deputies worked with Federal agents. They arrested the men who showed up that day. Out of the three, they were able to keep one. The other two ended up getting away. The people who ran the schemes, the real perpetrators of this, were far overseas. They still haven't answered for a single dollar of the more than $1 million that this farmer lost. This is no longer a rare story. In Iowa alone last year, families lost $96 million to these types of frauds, and Americans lost as much as $200 billion. To put that in another context, the entire budget for the U.S. Army is gone in 1 year, mainly to foreign actors committing fraud on U.S. citizens. Those citizens are retirees, farmers, and families. This is now the number one financial crime impacting families. That is why, 2 years ago, I brought together Iowa sheriffs, investigators, and local detectives and asked them what they needed to combat this rising number of scams and fraudsters targeting our communities. I am proud to say that their best ideas are now in the process of potentially becoming law with this bill, the GUARD Act. Together, we are fighting for 21st century solutions to address criminals who are using cutting-edge technology, but we are still dealing with it built from a different era. The moment that their money crosses a State line or an ocean, they hit a wall that only the Federal Government can help them climb. This bill aims to fix that. That is why our bipartisan bill, the GUARD Act, brings together real solutions and puts legislation in place for real-time tracing tools, including blockchain tracking, as well as Federal backup when these things happen, so that we can combat it on the front line before it becomes a national catastrophe. It helps not only my State and local law enforcement. It helps the deputy who is just trying to help a community member follow up, identify the money, and stop it before it leaves the district or the country. Most importantly, it goes after the people running these scams. I am grateful to AARP, financial lenders across the country, law enforcement, veterans groups, and other advocates who brought these ideas forward. This is exactly what Congress should be doing: taking and hearing concerns from our local communities and distilling them into a law that can actually help save money, save lives, and, most importantly, help people right here in our own country. Mr. Speaker, I thank colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their support of the GUARD Act.