Global Fraud Summit 2026 (Day 1 - AM)
Meetings & Events
Date: 16 March 2026
Language: English
Transcript: https://transcripts.un.org/ar/asset/k1d/k1d3g6i9e4?lang=en
Transcripts available through this tool are created by using automatic speech recognition and are not official records nor official documents of the United Nations. Official records and official documents are available on the Official Document System of the United Nations.

---

Speaker 1 [25:52]:

Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, may I please invite you to take your seats? The summit will start in two minutes. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, may I please invite you to take your seats? The summit will start in two minutes. Thank you.


UNODC · Giovanni Gallo [28:34]:

Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The summit will start in one minute. Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished delegates and participants, a warm welcome to Vienna. A warm welcome to the Global Fraud Summit, an event co organized by the United nations, its Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol. I would be grateful if you could take your seats so we can proceed with the proceedings of the day, which are very engaging, very exciting. Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Giovanni Gallo from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Together with my colleagues, we will help you navigate the many events of today and tomorrow's program and help you navigate the United Nations Compound. For those who are visiting our premises for the first time, let me start by giving some information about what is happening, when and where. For those who are in the UN Compound for the first time. This is what we call the M building. This is the Plenary Hall. In this Plenary hall, today and tomorrow, There will be 11 sessions. They will run from 10 to one and again from three to six, appreciating not only the level but also the number of participants. Today and tomorrow, Boardroom A in this building will serve as an overflow room. Boardroom A is located one level up in this building. All the plenary sessions will be conducted in the six official languages of the United nations with simultaneous interpretation. These are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Russian. All the plenary sessions will also be broadcast live and the link is accessible from the landing page of the Global Fraud Summit. Starting at lunchtime, there will be an engaging program of 14 high level special events. And they will take place in rooms M2 and M3, which are located again in this building. This afternoon, from 4 to 6, in room M3, there will be a high level session for governments that want to make national commitments or pledges on combating organized fraud. We also have, starting at lunchtime, a program of 51 side events. They will take place in rooms from M2 to M7. And in addition, we have 20 exhibitions. They are staged in this building as well as at the entrance of the UN Compound, what we call the Rotunda. I'm sure you've seen it on your way to the building. Plenary will break at 1 and will resume at 3. During the lunch break the restaurant, the cafeteria are at your disposal. And throughout the whole summit, coffee, tea, refreshments will be served in the catering areas of this building. The closest is on the left hand side of this room. The day will conclude with an Evening reception from 6 to 7 on the ground floor of this building. Behind me you can see a QR code through which you can access the website of the Global Fraud Summit where all this information is available in greater detail in different languages. Throughout the summit, the team and I are at your entire disposal for any question you may have or assistance you may need. If you are in doubt, do not hesitate to approach United nations staff. We are identifiable by wearing a blue belch. Conference service officers are here on my right or anything you may need, and an information desk is available on the ground floor of this building. The United nations remains committed to the highest level of accessibility to its work and events, including the Global Fraud Summit. Automated live captions are available for all plenary sessions through a link which we are happy to provide upon request. Reserved seating is available for those in need. If you have any accessibility requirement, do not hesitate to approach me or my colleagues. Let us now turn to the property opening of this distinguished A level event. And without further ado, it is my privilege to start calling on stage the three distinguished A Level opening speakers. First, the pro Temporary Director General of the United Nations Office at Vienna and Executive Director of the United Nations Office of drugs and crime. Mr. Brandolino. Please. It is now my honor to call upon the Secretary General of the International Criminal police organization, Interpol. Mr. Ukiza, please. And it is my privilege to call upon right honorable the Lord Hanson of Flint, Minister of State of the Home Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Please, sir. Mr. Brandolino, over to you for the formal opening of the Global Fraud Summit.


UNOV/UNODC · Director-General pro tem / Executive Director pro tem · John Brandolino [35:36]:

Excellencies, distinguished participants, I am honored to welcome you all to the 2026 Global Fraud Summit here at the Vienna International Center. I would like to begin by thanking our partners at Interpol for co organizing this important event. Our organizations have worked side by side for many years to prevent and combat international organized crime. This year in fact, marks the 10th anniversary of our cooperation agreement, reflecting the strong and continuing partnership. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the sponsors whose support made this summit possible. I would like to thank all of you in the room for making the journey here today. We have over 1300 participants registered for this event, including 17 ministers, 19 vice ministers, and over 400 representatives from Tech companies, nongovernmental organizations, academia, Financial institutions and other entities of the private sector. Bringing together this many voices and perspectives under one roof was not easy, but it was exactly what we needed, because the nature of fraud has fundamentally changed. In the past, fraud was mostly small scale, low tech, isolated. Today, we are facing a very different kind of fraud. One that is sophisticated, organized, and perpetrated across borders with breathtaking speed. It affects everyone, regardless of who they are or where they are from. Fraudsters can jump from one jurisdiction to another in seconds, still faster than law enforcement can respond. Operations can be based in one region, target victims in another, and store evidence somewhere else entirely. This transformation has been enabled in large part by technology, which has changed the rules of the game and allowed criminals to break those rules in ways we have not seen before. Once the deception succeeds, the money can be moved seamlessly through cryptocurrencies and other digital currencies. And these schemes can be deployed on a global scale, using tools that are able to reach millions of people in a matter in a very short period of time. The illicit profits generated by this form of crime are staggering. You've heard all the estimates. They amount to many, many, many billions of dollars stolen every year from individuals, businesses, institutions and governments. Where there is money to be made, criminals will be quick to seize the opportunity. And they also often become more organized to take advantage of that opportunity. And some of the most disturbing examples of this are the scam factories that rely on traffic labor. We are seeing a global ecosystem that requires different skill sets and expertise to address from tech companies, banks, private sector stakeholders and governments, all of them with a role to play. And that is why this summit is so important. It provides a unique setting to bring these different perspectives and this range of expertise together and to begin shaping a more coordinated global response. Excellencies, the international community has already recognized the gravity and extent of the threat. In many countries, it is the fastest growing crime. But an important message today will be that there are actions that we can take, often together, to make a difference, that there is hope in tackling this type of crime. Many of you will be sharing good practices and initiatives that are actually showing promise. And as always mentioned that it was an eye opener for me to attend. The United Kingdom had a summit, a similar summit, but at a much smaller scale, in the UK in 2024. And it was there that I learned of all the initiatives that were happening in the private sector by government, often together, that there were things that we can actually do to make a difference again against this crime. And there are existing international legal frameworks that if used wisely, can help guide us when it comes to law enforcement. Particularly I'll mention the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, which provides a basis for international cooperation in criminal matters, including fraud. And the new UN Cybercrime Convention, which opened for signature last year and is already signed by 74 states, offers a vital instrument to help Member States respond together to cyber enabled fraud. And it is the first global treaty to require criminalization of that crime. UNODC is also uniquely positioned to help Member States implement these instruments. In this particular context, we have a broad mandate that spans the entire criminal justice spectrum. UNODC and others are expanding the body of knowledge on fraud through research, analysis and policy papers. And with a global network of field offices in more than 100 countries and territories, we can help bring the expertise, training and technical assistance to where it is needed. The Summit is an opportunity to explore how we can best work together after taking a comprehensive look at today's fraud landscape. Over the course of these two days, we will hear from leading voices from various sectors. We will explore how to strengthen public private partnerships, better align policy, law enforcement and technological responses and how to promote prevention through awareness raising, education and help how to help victims rebuild their lives. And above all, the Summit will lead to concrete forward looking commitments and pledges made by all of you to confront fraud. Dear participants, we have a long way ahead of us and this summit is just the beginning. It's a key opportunity to determine the future direction of the global fight against fraud and to align our efforts to across borders and institutions and sectors. Please consider UNODC as your committed partner in this effort. Our office stands ready to work with all of you in the follow up to the summit, including through the development of an Agile platform to ensure that fight against fraud is coherent, effective and coordinated. Let us seize this opportunity to set the foundation for a truly global response to organized fraud. Thank you in advance for your presence and contributions and I wish you a successful two days.


UNODC · Giovanni Gallo [43:05]:

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Brandolino, executive director Pro Temporary of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. I would now like to invite to Deliver Opening remarks Mr. Valdisi Urquiza, the Secretary General of the International Criminal police organization, Interpol. Mr. Urquiza.


INTERPOL · SG · Valdecy Urquiza [43:42]:

Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Good morning and welcome to the Global Fraud Summit. It is a privilege to stand with all of you today and I want to begin by thanking the Right Honorable the Lord Hanson of Flint and the United Kingdom for your leadership in convening this event. And also John Brandolino and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for joining Interpol as co host and partner. Your commitment reflects the urgency of the challenge before us. We are gathered here because fraud does not wait. It crosses border. It deceives people and it harms business, corporations, communities and national economies. The threat is not only real, it is accelerating. Between 2024 and 2025, Interpol notices and diffusions related to fraud increased by 54%. Our member countries have been unequivocal that fraud has become one of interpolation top operational priorities. Today we will launch the Interpol Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment. That was made possible through the general support of the United Kingdom. And I'd like to share just a couple of findings with you. Scam centers are spreading across continents in all the different regions of the globe. Global losses were estimated at close to half a trillion US dollars. Criminals are deploying advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence to scale their operations and refine their deception tactics. Victims are no longer targeted only through emails or phone calls. They are contacted by who appear to be their own family members, their managers or trusted colleagues. Through fabricated videos and synthetic voice recordings. The speed at which this tactics evolve is staggering. Knowing the threat, however, colleagues, is not enough. We must act and we must act together. Fraud thrives when countries work alone. It exploits gaps between jurisdictions, difference in in legislation and delays in information sharing. Our response is only effective when we move as one team. Multilateralism gives us the tools to do this. It enables countries to share data, expertise and operational insights. It allows us to coordinate investigations that span borders and legal systems. It ensures that no country, large or small, is left to confront transnational crime in isolation. This is the spirit of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the UN Convention Against Cybercrime. Bringing that spirit to life at the front line depends on every actor represented today in this room. International partners who help trace networks that target victims globally. The private sector, whose data and early warning tools are essential to identify emerging threats. Civil society and academia, whose research and insights guide our collective response. Your presence today sends a powerful message to those who are seek to deceive and exploit. We elevate the fight against fraud to a global priority. Today we chart a common path forward. The first step is to learn from our shared successes. Last year, only Interpol supported member countries in more than 1,500 investigations into major fraud cases involving over 1point billion in stolen funds. Together, we dismantled a major scam center in Southeast Asia. Uncovered AI generated job ads used to lure human trafficking victims and helped rescue individuals whose lives were at risk. These operations showed us what works. Now we are ready to go further. This year, Interpol is introducing a new task force force model. A more agile, more target and more collaborative approach to tackling complex fraud networks. Under this model, we will assemble around specific hubs and criminal networks, remove silos and barriers to information sharing, coordinate laser focus actions across jurisdiction, and deploy specialized office where they are most needed. As we build these new platforms, we do so on a strong foundation. Your leadership, your commitment and your willingness to work together across sectors and borders. From law enforcement to civil society, from financial institutions to social media platforms, we all share responsibilities for confronting this threat. We must monitor emerging risks, build real capacity in the field, report incidents quickly and consistently, disrupt criminal operations at every stage. Every online profile removed, every fraudulent bank account closed, every suspect identified. Bring us closer to protecting communities and restoring trust. This is the core of our call for action. This summit is an essential step forward. It reflects our shared determination to act not tomorrow, not next year, but now. Interpol is ready and I know you are all ready as well. Now it is time for us to work together to build a global response that matches the scale, speed and sophistication of the threat. Together, we can protect our citizens, our economies, and the integrity of our digital world. Let's get to work. Thank you.


UNODC · Giovanni Gallo [50:44]:

Thank you, Mr. Kizam. The Secretary General of Interpol. It is now my privilege to invite on stage to deliver keynote remarks the Right Honorable Lord Hanson of Flint, Minister of State of the United Kingdom of Great Peter and Northern Island. Sir, please.


United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland · Minister of State · Lord Hanson of Flint [51:09]:

Well, good morning everybody, and welcome to this conference here in Vienna and the summit. It's a real pleasure for me to be here on behalf of the United Kingdom government, but also to welcome the over 1400 delegates that are here today from over 124 countries, with over 40 political leads in place today from ministerial level. And I want to begin, if I may, by first of all thanking both the United nations and John and colleagues, but also to thank Interpol for helping to coordinate this massive effort today. I want to thank all of you for coming. It's a long way to Vienna from different parts of the country that you've come from. But as law enforcement leaders, as regulators, as industry partners, and as civil society representatives, this turnout represents the gravity of the challenge that we face today. It is a historic challenge for us, but it is not a new challenge. And in seeking to grip it, we follow in the footsteps of many who have come before us. For this threat of fraud has bedeviled every generation that has ever existed from ancient civilizations to the Ponzi schemes of the last century, history is littered with people who want to use fraud to damage our individuals, in our society and our businesses. There are always those who are driven by greed and there are always those who will stoop to deception. But while this aim never changes, we know now that today, new developments bring new tricks. And today, as my colleagues have mentioned, is more different than ever before in our society. Today, in the digital age, the tools and tactics of fraud have evolved beyond anything the scammers and swindlers of the past could ever have imagined, let alone execute. As John mentioned, what once required proximity, being close to the person you're defrauding now can be done from any part of the world to any individual or business anywhere in the world. Fraud is international and the results are devastating. In my country, the United Kingdom alone, fraud accounts of 44% of all of our crime. Damaging individuals, damaging businesses, damaging our economy and stopping our ability to grow our economy and trade with our partners. And that resource, as was mentioned by colleagues from Interpol, is about actually being drawn from the United Kingdom and recycled in drugs, in people trafficking and in other forms of criminal activity. Behind every statistic lies profound human suffering. Individuals defrauded of their hard earned savings, businesses crippled by ruinous losses. Victims left to count the cost of those responsible, with our economy stalled as a result. Now, for the UK's part, we have put in place a strategy which I was pleased to launch only a week ago today in London. The contents of which you'll hear more about in the summit as we go on. But our strategy depends on 6 or 7 really key data sharing, as was mentioned, understanding what the data is, international cooperation, working with you and partners to deliver better outcomes, public awareness of fraud across the world at large and across our communities, of what the scammers are up to and how the scammers operate. Greater support for victims of that journey. So they are registered and we know what their victim journey is looking as was mentioned again by colleagues a moment ago at the future challenges AI, which four, five, six years ago was not thought of, what's it going to look like in 4, 5, 6 years time in relation to the scammers, who, unlike governments, are unregulated, can do what they please and we need to be aware of those challenges and let's look at what we can do to tackle their assets, to hit their profits and to bring them to justice. So I'm particularly pleased today that we have political leadership in this room today, not just from myself, in the United Kingdom, but from countries across the world who are saying no to scammers and no to this action. The prevalence of fraud today speaks to a truth we must all confront. The criminal gangs do not respect borders, whether in fraud, people smuggling or cybercrime. And the transnational nature of those threats mean that no country, no matter how big or how small, can tackle this challenge alone. In an online age, not even the most capable sophisticated government or agency has all the answers. Which is why I'm pleased we're here today. And occasions such as this summit can really be never more vital. Over the next two days, we have the chance to engage in free and frank discussions about the challenges we face, whether from our respective countries or as a collective. We can air the insights and perspectives that we have about our common goal for the future. We can, I hope, secure concrete actions to drive down fraud and make our citizens safer. Actions such as the Global Public Private Partnership to operationalize the United nations framework. This partnership, which my country, the United Kingdom, has spearheaded in developing, create a real shared way of working between government and industry. One that will make prevention and disruption faster, more consistent and more effective, with stronger safeguards to stop fraud at source, with simple accessible reporting mechanisms, and with swifter identification of emerging patterns and repeat offenders. And above all, it shows our commitment to work with anyone, and I mean anyone, to fight this crime. All of this is needed. But I suggest to us today, colleagues, that we must go further. We must include removing unnecessary barriers to lawful information sharing so that we collectively across nations can share information about what bad actors are doing. We need to look at real time harm, not slow motion cooperation. We need to have speed and agility as the threat demands. And again I say to us all today, cooperation, international cooperation, is the only way forward. The United Kingdom is particularly proud to stand alongside Australia, France, Italy, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and also our private sector partners in Google, Match, Meta, Amazon, Virgin Media and the International Banking Federation in our public private UK partnership. Because as crucial as prevention is, it is only though one part of the solution. We know that across the world, the same networks that are perpetrating fraud on the people that we represent in the United Kingdom are also engaged in human trafficking, exploitation and money laundering. And no government should be able to tolerate that level of crime. I'm therefore pleased to announce that the UK government will support the new Interpol led Global Task Force on Scam Centres. We will take the fight to these international scale criminal operations head on. We will try to break with Interpol Support the vicious cycle that threatens the safety and stability of our nations. And as government and law enforcement agencies step up, I have to say, so must all the platforms and the services that criminals exploit. I'm pleased today that it's not just governments, it's not just law enforcement agencies, but it's also the platforms by which people access fraud that are here today. We have several major technology companies represented and that's sends a shared signal, I believe, to the world at large that this is a shared priority for government, for law enforcement, and also for the platforms that operate. People need to have trust and confidence in their expenditure on platforms. It's a shared interest for the future. So we have an opportunity in these next few days to continue this long battle against fraud. But I want to end on a note of defiance and optimism. Just because something keeps happening does not mean we accept it as our fate. The steps we are taking now are making it more difficult for criminals to operate. Criminals will be watching this summit and seeing government, law enforcement and private sector working together. This is a unique opportunity to build response equal to the scale of the threat. To mount a stronger effort than ever before to take the fight to fraudsters, to help free our societies and our systems from their diabolical grip. That's a formidable task. We are never going to stop all fraud. But we have a duty, a duty as society, government, law enforcement, and as platforms to make sure that we take this formidable task on. This is one of the defining security issues of our age. We are called upon to defend our values, uphold our security, and to make sure that technology works for the people, not for the fraudsters. For the sake of our citizens, our businesses, our institutions, we have a duty, colleagues, to succeed. And if we act with that shared purpose, if we draw on the strength of the nations that are present here today, if we draw on the strength of law enforcement that is here today, I believe we can and we will prevail. I'm about action, though, not words. I want to see from the outcome of this conference clear direction of travel, clear support for objectives. And I know that together we can make a difference. And I know together we can take that fight to fraudsters. And I thank once again both the United nations and Interpol. And I look forward to meeting many of you during this week, a couple of days to work further on this issue. But I say to us today this is an extremely important event. This is key to our fight against fraud. Your presence shows that commitment. And I welcome you here today on behalf of the United Kingdom, government And also my colleagues here today. Thank you,


UNODC · Giovanni Gallo [1:02:26]:

Lord Hanson, Mr. Rukiza, Mr. Brandolino. Thank you. Thank you for your inspiring words and for sharing your vision. No better way to frame the political urgency, global, regional, national to tackle fraud. Disrupt the criminal networks behind it while protecting and supporting its millions of victims. May I invite you now to take your seats on stage as we transition to the first plenary session of the day. And thank you very much again. Well, there could not be now better transition after the words we heard, to the first plenary session of the day. An eye level plenary session, like they all are. It is entitled Turning the Tide from Commitments to Action. I would like to invite the distinguished panelists to take the floor. Take take their seats on stage. While calling upon Her Excellency, Ms. Matilda Osei Agiman, the premier representative of Ghana to the United nations, who will be the moderator of the session. Ambassador, over to you.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:04:27]:

Thank you very much. Excellencies, distinguished ministers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, Good morning. My name is Matilda AKU Alomato Sajeman and I'm the Ambassador of Ghana to Vienna, to Austria, and also the permanent representative of Ghana to the United nations here in Vienna. It is with great pleasure and honor for me to welcome you all to the first plenary session of the Global Fraud Summit under the theme Turning the Tide from Commitment to Action. During this session, we will set the strategic tone for our discussions. Over the course of the summit, fraud has evolved into a global, highly adaptive and deeply interconnected threat. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Just when you thought you had definitely turned your phone off. Technology plays tricks on you. Sorry about that. As I was saying, fraud has evolved into a global, highly adaptive and deeply interconnected threat. One that exploits digitalization, operates across borders and increasingly intersects with organized criminal groups. Its scale, complexity and impact demand not only awareness, but coordinated, sustained action. So we begin today by looking at the evidence which will provide the foundation for our discussion. Before turning to how commitment can be translated into practical action, we will first hear insights drawn from the latest threat assessment of interpol delivered by Mr. Darren Jones. Then he is the Executive Director for Partnerships and Planning. And then research from the United Nations Office on Drugs and crime by Ms. Candice Welsh, who is the Director of the Division for Policy Analysis and Policy Public Affairs. These perspectives will outline the current and evolving global fraud landscape, highlighting key trends, regional dynamics, emerging risks and the links between fraud, digital ecosystems and cross border vulnerabilities. Following these introductory insights will move from an interactive and forward looking dialogue focused on one central question, that is, how do we translate political commitments into concrete actions and measurable impact? We will explore how international frameworks and global commitments can be operationalized through national and regional strategies, institutional coordination, innovation, and sustained political leadership. The discussion will also provide space to reflect on common challenges, emerging risks, and opportunities for more coordinated and complementary action across regions. With that, let us begin by turning to the evidence that frames our discussion. And to do that, I would like to give the floor to Ms. Candice Walsh. Ms. Walsh, you have the floor, please.


UNODC · Director, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs · Candice Walsh [1:08:01]:

Excellencies, distinguished ministers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Last year, UNODC invited Member States to share data, experiences, and challenges in addressing fraud in its many forms. Their responses offer valuable insights into how this threat is evolving, how countries are responding, and what further action is needed. Allow me to highlight four key points that emerged from this global exchange. First, we must strengthen and modernize legal and regulatory frameworks. The questionnaire and our analysis revealed wide variations in how fraud is defined and criminalized across jurisdictions. While most countries share common elements such as deception being used to obtain financial and material benefit and the resulting economic gains for perpetrators or losses for victims, there is still no universally agreed definition or approach. These differences across countries can impede effective international cooperation. At the same time, fraud itself is rapidly evolving. Many national laws were designed around traditional interpersonal deception, but today's schemes often rely on manipulating electronic data or exploiting digital systems. They also cover all different kinds of scams, from employment offers to romance to investments. For this reason, Member States have emphasized the urgent need to update legislation, classify certain types of fraud as serious crimes, and leverage the international cooperation mechanisms under the Organized Crime Convention and the newly adopted Cybercrime Convention Convention 2 Law enforcement capacity and cooperation are essential. Promising practices reported by Member States include the use of specialized task forces of sharing intelligence, undertaking joint investigations, and improved systems for monitoring, reporting, and information sharing. These tools are critical for detecting patterns, linking cases across borders and responding to increasingly sophisticated organized practices. Fraud criminal groups since the crimes are also closely linked to laundering of the proceeds they generate, efforts to strengthen money laundering regulations, financial investigations, and asset forfeiture were also emphasized. But these efforts must be supported by adequate resources. Many authorities highlighted the need for specialized personnel, up to date technological tools, and continuous training to effectively investigate cases that often rely on rapidly changing technologies. And this is a reality that is not going to get any easier in the years to come with generative AI and other advances. The other point which is critical is understanding that no one country can seek to tackle the challenges of organized fraud on its own. These Crimes often span more than one jurisdiction. With the organized criminal groups moving and adapting to try and avoid detection in law enforcement. The need to strengthen the ability to work together across borders is therefore critical. Third, prevention and public awareness must be at the center of our response. A clear message from Member States is that enforcement alone will never be enough. Prevention is critical. Many countries are investing in public awareness campaigns and education to help individuals recognize suspicious behavior and reduce their vulnerability. It is also important to reduce any stigma that victims may feel to ensure that they report fraud when it happens, so that law enforcement can take action. Accessible reporting channels, timely support and compensation mechanisms can assist efforts to raise awareness and build the resistance of vulnerable communities. Need to be tailored to the different types of people at risk, which might be older individuals that are targeted by some scams, or it might be young, well educated people that are often the target of employment scams or even the victim of trafficking in persons for the purpose of forced criminal behavior. And these efforts are all the more essential because today's fraud schemes often target large numbers of people on an industrial scale. And lastly, persistent gaps require collective coordinated action. Despite significant efforts undertaken in recent years, Member States identified several common limited technological tools and fraud detection systems, lack of specialized personnel, limited financial resources dedicated to fighting this type of criminality, low levels of public awareness, and insufficient cooperation between the public and private spheres. Addressing these gaps requires collective action. It means strengthening public private information sharing, investing in modern detection tools and developing clear channels for effective communication and operational and legal cooperation across borders. It also means learning from one another, sharing experiences, strategies and innovative approaches to both prevention and disruption. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, this event comes at exactly the right moment. It gives us a platform to deepen our understanding, exchange good practices and reinforce our shared commitment to addressing a threat that is growing in scale, complexity and impact. I hope that our discussions today and throughout this summit will be a first step forward together and help us advance stronger, more coordinated and more effective responses. Responses that protect individuals, strengthen institutions and safeguard societies from the escalating cost of fraud. Thank you very much.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:13:41]:

Thank you so much, Ms. Walsh, for sharing that insight. Ladies and Gentlemen, and to complement this perspective, I now have the honor of giving the floor to Mr. Darren Jones to share insights from Interpol's latest threat assessment. Sir Jones,


INTERPOL · Executive Director, Partnerships and Planning · Darren Jones [1:14:06]:

Ministers Excellencies, law enforcement colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Darren Jones and I'm an Executive Director for Partnerships and Planning at interpol. I'm a 30 year law enforcement veteran. Thank you. Also, in particular for the members of industry that are with us you have an extraordinarily important role to play in this process. And I'm heartened by the fact that so many of you are here. I'm not surprised this room is full. It demonstrates very clearly the interest that I've seen over the last year growing in this particular subject. Today marks the release of the second edition of Interpol's Global Fraud Threat Assessment. Since the first edition was published two years ago, we have observed a great deal of change over the landscape. And I want to take just a few minutes to share with you some of the key findings, highlight in particular the scale that we are seeing and some of the key trends. And then we'll talk very briefly about some of the emerging threats and how we need to think about acting more collectively. We all have individual roles to play, but we need to play them in a more collective way. The findings of this threat assessment were developed by Interpol using data from Our member countries, 196 member countries around the globe and also key members international organizations, private sector and academia. Thank you for your engagement, for your commitment enhancing the global understanding of this threat. You heard the Secretary General talk about this number. That is a scary number. Unfortunately, fraud continues to be significantly under reported for a range of reasons. And estimating fraud and the cost of fraud is extraordinarily challenging. This estimate from our partners at the Global Anti Scam alliance who are with us today at least helped us put some kind of a face on this impact. Let me give you one other figure that might help to do that. US$442 billion. That's greater than the gross domestic product of 180 or about 90% over 90% of Interpol's partners. That's what we're losing to fraud every year. But let's talk a little bit about the impact beyond those financial losses because it is substantial beyond financial losses. We need to recognize the impact this is having on your national economies. The trust in the global financial system, it is based on trust and that is being eroded by this fraud. The reputational damage cost to countries and the enormous human cost. You know, for some of the more developed higher income countries, when you're a victim of fraud, it becomes an embarrassing inconvenience convenience. In other countries it's absolutely life changing. When your life savings is gone or you don't have enough money to buy food to the end of the month. Fraud victims often experience profound emotional distress, psychological trauma, social isolation long after the fraud has taken place. And as unfortunately I think most people in this Room realize in severe cases, victims of fraud, fraud, including family members, resorted to suicide to deal with the guilt and shame. And this is particularly poignant when we talk about our teens and sextortion. They do not have the psychological resilience to deal with these kind of threats. So what have we seen over the last two years since the last report? We've mapped out four key changes. I'm going to walk through them very quickly with you. And many of these were reflected in the first fraud report as emerging threats. And they have now, however, grown into full fledged threats today. So, number one, first, the spread of scam centers. We have seen them continuing to be increasingly dependent on forced labor. Despite intensified law enforcement efforts, scam centers continue to grow more dangerous, more sophisticated, and certainly more widespread globally. This is no longer a Southeast Asia problem, ladies and gentlemen. This is a global problem. Number two, fraud operations are no longer run by opportunistic criminals. They are now run by extremely agile, efficient, organized criminal networks. That explains in part what we've seen, the globalization of Scott fraud centers, basically. In short, what we've seen is the industrial revolution in global fraud. Third, the fraud is now polycriminal. In addition to human trafficking, fraud also intersects almost without exception with money laundering, corruption, terrorism, and a whole host of other organized crime offenses. And fourth, technology and artificial intelligence, which has been raised by every speaker this morning, have grown into a full force, multiple multiplier criminals are making extraordinarily better use of this technology for more realistic, more effective and even more cost efficient scams. Let's talk a little bit more about the technology and AI. In the past two years, we've saw this empowering element of criminal networks basically scaling their operations just like we would see in a tech company with minimal investments. We've seen fraud as a service, deep fakes as a service on the dark web, synthetic identity kits, AI generated video avatars and voice clones. So now when the fraud comes from somebody that you think you know, it even sounds like the person you know. This enables the fraudsters to have wider spread access to sophisticated fraud capabilities, transforming social engineering scams, being able to construct fraud fully immersive, highly persuasive schemes. We've seen a significant escalation in financially motivated sextortion across the world. And this includes the use of AI, sexually explicit contact, deep fakes to exploit victims. Do you have any images online? Trip to the park with your family? Those images can be exploited in this way. Fraud today impacts every region. I couldn't agree more. No one is immune, no country is immune. Let's talk very quickly about the top five fraud types. Number one, still up there, business email compromise. Number two, investment fraud, romance and sextortion and expansion of the scam centers in almost all instances. What we are seeing in these fraud schemes is they are increasingly hybrid. It's, it's not just one single scam anymore as it used to be. There is now a combination of romance scams, investment frauds, baiting schemes and sextortion. In short, they keep trying until they are successful. If one method doesn't work, if they can't convince you that you're in love with them, they will try to get you into the investment scheme. And if that doesn't work, they will resort to sextortion. They are the most persistent pernicious criminals history. Okay, well, let's talk about some good news. You heard the Secretary General talking a little bit this morning about some of the statistics. I'd like to share with you a couple of other observations. In terms of global pervasiveness, volume and impact, we now rank these among the highest threats. Drug trafficking, money laundering. If you'd have asked me 30 years ago when I started in law enforcement, even 10 years ago, there's no way I would have put cyber fraud or online fraud anywhere in that realm with terrorism and drugs. We're there now. We're there today. The SG talked about the increase 54% increase in fraud related Interpol notices and diffusions. Let's unpack that for just a sec. That's a pretty good number, right? 54% increase in the use of those tools. And I would love to tell you that's because, because our law enforcement officials are getting better at using those tools. And they are to some degree. That growth is born out of necessity. 54% increase in this reporting period. That's astounding to me. So we talk about the databases. For those of you who don't know, Interpol's role is largely to get the critical law enforcement information where it needs to be, into the right hands at the right time around the globe. Interpol databases will were queried last year over 9 billion times by your law enforcement officials around the globe. That's 25 million times a day. That is a lot of information. It's what you think of when you think of the famous red notices, wanted persons, blue notices, additional information about people and cases, purple notices. Many people have never even heard of a purple notice. It's when we talk about and exchange information in law enforcement about tactics and techniques that the criminals are Using and silver notices when we can't get there in time and we have to try to trace the assets after the fact. The SG talked about the fact that we regularly run anti fraud operations and we do and we're quite proud of that 1500 times during this reporting period and talked about the fact that we seized and were able to return to victims $1.1 billion in assets. That's an astounding figure. That is a fantastic number until you divide it by 442 and then it becomes 0.0025. That is also a jaw dropping number. I think our citizens have come to expect more. They expect more from law enforcement certainly and they expect more from their governments. So I'm glad we're here having these conversations today. So let's talk about a little bit more about the coordinated global response. There's no question we need to do better. We need to be more collective and coordinated in our efforts. If we talk about some of the ways we need to do this, number one, recognizing and criminalizing frauds, monitoring and sharing information. You know Interpol by definition is an absolutely politically neutral organization. We have to be, we have to keep law enforcement information sharing no matter what is going on in the world. Whether there's a conflict, whether there's political instability. We have to be able to talk to each other. But we saw something very extraordinary happen last year in Marrakesh at the General Assembly. Once a year we bring the global law enforcement leaders together in one room at our General assembly to talk about the most critical issues in law enforcement. And we saw something quite extraordinary last year there was a resolution passed by these laws enforcement leaders to encourage the ratification of the UN Cybercrime Convention, to encourage its ratification by all member countries and further to do everything in our power to help member countries implement that convention because they know it's necessary to help law enforcement fight this fight. We need to further strengthen law enforcement criminal justice. We need to cooperate with more relevant stakeholders. Stakeholders and prevent and educate. The human being is almost always the weakest link and I think everybody can recognize that. We have got to do a better job of training. It's clear we all have our unique role. We just need to coordinate more. And I would say this to the members of industry that are in the room. Thank you for the investment and time you've made by being here. I was at the Mobile World Congress with many of you a couple weeks ago in Barcelona. This was the number one topic on the ministerial meeting. Online fraud. Because so many mobile devices now are the entry point for this type of fraud. You have an extraordinarily important role. You've given us fantastic products and services. You've done a great job building in security and privacy. I need you to ask to take the next step now. We need to start building in things when law enforcement can't get there in time. You, you've done an extraordinary job building the just in time supply chain. It makes it pretty hard for an old cop to get there just in time sometimes. So we need to start thinking about how can we do more to put law enforcement in a position to help law enforcement bring justice to those victims when we can't get there in time. So thank you for your partnership and engage you. I really look forward to a discussion. Victims Interpol adopted many years ago. A more victim centric approach. We do this for. We're going to talk about this tomorrow. The speakers are going to talk about victims a great deal tomorrow. Tomorrow. But what I would say today is we have got to have a more compassionate response. And this is in part for selfish reasons to help facilitate better recovery, increase reporting by victims. There is still a huge stigma and embarrassment associated with fraud. And people have a tendency not wanting to report. We've got to have this information in order to better target criminal networks and disrupt these financial frauds. We need to do more to make this planet a hostile place to these scam centers. Everything in our power to reduce the incentive to take this ill gotten gains and to remain reduce the working capital they need. Okay, last slide. The global fraud assessment is relevant for everybody in this room. I hope you take time to read it. Governments, law enforcement, private sector, academia. I invite you to read it at your leisure. Now I know what you're thinking. We're at a scam conference and you're thinking I'm not going to scan that QR code. Good for you. That's what you should be thinking. You should be quite questioning something like that. Now I can tell you I checked it. It's good. But for those of you that still can't do it, we have printed copies out in the lobby and in the rotunda. Please take the time to read that report. And thank you again for the investment you've made by being here today and partnering with us.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:28:19]:

So much, Mr. Jones, for that. With these insights, we realize that the fraud that we are confronting is of magnificent proportions. The information that we've had, the insights that have been shared are not simply informative. They must be foundational to inform our priority setting and policy making at the national, regional and global levels. With this in mind, it is my great pleasure to thank you, Ms. Walsh, and to thank you, Mr. Jones, again. And I now warmly welcome our distinguished speakers to continue this important discussion. We already have Ms. Candice Walsh with us here we had. Ms. Candice Walsh, as we said earlier, is the Director of the Division for Policy Analysis and Public affairs of the UNODC. Thank you. Once again, we welcome Mr. Valdesi Uguza, Secretary General of Interpol, to take his seat. We also welcome the Right Honorable Lord Hanson of Flint, Minister of State at the Home Office, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We also give the floor to Ms. Marie Pierre Vedran, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Interior in charge of Citizenship of France. And last, but definitely not the least, we welcome Mr. Magnus Bruner, European Commissioner for Internal affairs and Migration. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us and being part of this exchange. With the evidence just presented clearly before us, the question now becomes, how do we act on it? Across regions and sectors, governments, international organizations, civil society and private sector are already taking important steps to combat fraud. Among these global efforts, the Global Fraud Summit also moves decisively from commitment to action. It does so through the Call to Action on Combating Fraud, a high level document open to voluntary endorsement by member States, observer states, international organizations that seek to translate political commitments into practical operational measures, ensuring that shared priorities lead to tangible results. To formally mark this step forward, it is now my pleasure to. Before we begin our discussion, to invite you all to watch a short video launching the Call to Action on Combating Fraud.


Speaker 14 [1:31:40]:

Fraud is harming individuals, communities, businesses and governments worldwide, causing significant. Fraud is a. Fraud is a rapidly growing transnational threat perpetrated increasingly by organized criminal groups. Fraud is harming individuals, communities, businesses and governments worldwide, causing significant financial losses and profound social harm. The size and scale of fraud demand an urgent, coordinated international response. Together, we will recognize fraud as a serious transnational crime and criminalize it. Monitor the fraud threat, enhance the global threat picture and improve information sharing. Strengthen law enforcement and criminal justice. Promote prevention initiatives and take measures to protect and support victims of fraud. Enhance cooperation domestically and internationally across sectors.


INTERPOL · SG · Valdecy Urquiza [1:32:54]:

Organized fraud is no longer a distance threat. It's accelerating, evolving and reaching into every community. The time for action is now.


UNOV/UNODC · Director-General pro tem / Executive Director pro tem · John Brandolino [1:33:10]:

Organized criminal groups are exploiting advanced technology and gaps in legislation and regulation to defraud victims on a global scale. We need to unite to fight back by supporting criminal justice responses across borders, improving our understanding of the threat and strengthening laws, regulations and policies.


Speaker 17 [1:33:31]:

Let us act against fraud. Not now,


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:33:45]:

Thank you very much. Distinguished ministers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. As we have just seen, the Call to Action marks an important step in strengthening our collective response to fraud. I'm pleased to note that the call has already been endorsed by 18 counterparts and counting. And these 18 counterparts will be shown on your screen very soon. But I'd like to go through them. We have Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Ghana, Japan, Lithuania, Malta, Myanmar, Norway, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Slovakia, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Financial Action Task Force, International Chamber of Commerce, United Nations Action Institute for the Prevention and Treatment of Offenders. And so, for those who have not yet done so and wish to, the Call to Action will be open for endorsement until the 31st of March this year. This is the end of this month. Over the course of the next two days, an endorsement form will be available for signature in room MOE67. Again, room MOE67 after the session until 31 March, Member States, observer states and international organizations will be able to endorse the call by submitting a note verbal via their respective permanent and and observer missions to the United Nations. And for those wishing to go even further, stakeholders are also invited to submit pledges on combating fraud. And these should be concrete, action oriented contributions designed to complement the Call to Action. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, with this renewed sense of shared response, we now turn to our discussion. And so, building on the evidence presented earlier, as we all saw, and the actions reflected in the Call to Action, we will explore how political commitments can be translated into practical implementation through national and regional strategies, institutional coordination, cross border operations and sustainability, sustained leadership. So we will have three rounds of questioning depending on how our time goes. Two, three rounds, we'll see how things go. And so for the first round of question, every speaker has the same question and they're just short responses to set the tone into our deep dive. Distinguished panelists, at the beginning of this session, the UNODC and interpolation highlighted the evolving scale and complexity of fraud. And so, looking at this from your perspective, your respective perspectives, what does turning the tide and going from commitment to action mean and what do you see as the top priorities to achieve it? I don't know if you would like me to go at the question, but the first speaker will be Lord, the Right of Honourable Lord Hanson of Flint.


United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland · Minister of State · Lord Hanson of Flint [1:37:13]:

Hello, welcome. Again. What we've tried to do as a UK government is do really three big things. First of all, to look at how we collect data in our own operation in the United Kingdom. So we have now just established very shortly and we'll be working through the next 12 months on this, what we've called our online crime centre in London, as I mentioned in my contribution speeches, that involves law enforcement agencies, banks, building societies, financial organizations and platforms who are here today collecting and sharing data as far as possible to both examine the type of fraud attacks that are occurring, where they're emanating from, how we can take them down quickly and how we can take action on collecting that information and sharing it among ourselves. There's a range of legal issues that we always have to look at on those things, but actually it's really important that we find a way through that and that's what we're trying to do over the next 12 months. Second big thing is to look at the international elements that we've got with fraud as a whole. What, what we've tried to do is not just work with the United nations and Interpol to help encourage the type of action we've got today, but we've also done bilateral work with a number of countries and we want to do more. So, for example, I visited Nigeria last April. We signed an understanding with the Nigerian government of things that we would jointly do for each other, for the Nigerian government and the UK government, and that resulted in a scam centre, for example, being taken down in Nigeria by joint cooperation between our law enforcement agencies and the Nigerian government. But we want to do more because reputationally for both countries, as was mentioned by our earlier Interpol presentation, which was excellent, is very difficult and very challenging. And the third thing we've done is try to bring together the platforms and telecommunication companies into a formal recognition that they have a shared ownership of us to help solve those problems. So, for example, we've got all the telecom companies that operate in the United Kingdom have signed what we've called the Telecom Charter, signed at the end of last year, which sets definitive objectives for the next 12 months, for the next two years, to look at how we can stop telecom scams. That means what action they're going to take, with support from UK government to take action to take down those telecom scams. And it's really important because from a Minister's perspective, as the Minister responsible for fraud prevention in the United Kingdom, I am both welcoming a voluntary approach, but I'm also genuinely taking a really serious interest in what the people performances of those telecom companies. And if the performance isn't good, doesn't meet what I expect, then we'll have to look at, from a government perspective, what other action we need to take. To encourage that action in a positive way. We're doing the same with the platforms. There's great cooperation and we've got great support here today from a range of platforms from which fraud emanates. And what we're trying to do is again to get a minimum standard that we expect of those organizations in partnership because the reputational damage to the companies where those platforms fraud occurs is bad. It's also the gateway for victims that we represent which is bad for companies that we represent, which is bad. So we need to have joint action. And what I'm trying to do is to establish through voluntary partnership initially minimum standards of action on those key areas. And I think, I think all of that is really significant. And finally we're looking to give a better victim experience. We're never going to stop fraud but what we can do is make sure that all the points that were mentioned by Interpol of reporting it, of not being embarrassed about sharing it are really important. So with our colleagues in the City of London police who lead for fraud in the United Kingdom them we've just established an organization called Report Fraud where individuals can phone up, register the fraud, get a number for that crime. That crime will be tracked through the data that we've got, will be shared and encourage the use of that data collectively. And ultimately you'll get some feedback as to what's happened about your particular fraud. Now it may not result in money back but it will, will help us to understand that nature and take it seriously. So with all of those things we're trying to as a government develop across business private sector government law enforcement fraud strategy and we're at the very early stages of this climbing Mount Everest but we're hopeful that we're going to make some progress.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:42:08]:

Thank you, thank you so much for outlining that. Indeed. I had a follow up question but I think you covered it in this, in this response. You've, you've given us lots of insight. Data collection is very important. Collaboration with international organizations and then the telecom companies have given us a whole of society approach anti fraud strategies in the digital space and on and on. So thank you so much for that. I think that I don't need to worry about my next follow up question. I was actually going to ask you what concrete steps your country has, has taken. You've taken concrete steps even with other countries. So the PPPs, the collaboration with Nigeria is enough for me to tackle the next question that I had for you. So thank you for that. My next speaker will be Ms. Marie Pierre Vedran. And the question is the same. Would you like me to still go over the question? Okay. All right, I'll do so. So the question is, at the beginning of this session, the UNODC and Interpol highlighted the evolving scale and complexity of fraud. And so, looking at this from your perspective, what does turning the tide and going from commitment to action mean? And what do you see as the top priorities to achieve it? This is just briefly to set the tones. Maybe two minutes should be. Okay, thank you.


France · Minister Delegate · Marie-Pierre Vedran [1:43:30]:

Thank you very much. First of all, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak here at this summit. Thank you to the UNODC and Interpol for organizing this summit. And I'd really like to highlight the role of the United Kingdom as well in the work they've done to organize this event. Since the first summit in 2024, we have started to move from. From words to action. As was mentioned in the keynote address, there's a need for this, given the changes in this phenomenon. So France has worked to develop a specialized international network allowing us to address concrete operations, joint operations between European law enforcement and our counterparts in Asia or Africa. And France has been leading the way in terms of this concrete European action with mechanisms at the European level, such as IMPACT to combat fraud online with third country parties, with considerable results. And I can recognize also the work of all of the different operators who have allowed us to work in this area, all of the participants in the example of Synergy 3 under Interpol, for instance. However, despite this mobilization and this action, we see that the phenomenon of fraud is changing and increasing in scope. So it's essential to go further. And that is why we have this call to action to try to scale up not just nationally, but moving to the European level and the international level. That is how we will be able to take real action. And very briefly, I'd like to highlight three points in our work that are absolutely essential. The international plan, police and legal cooperation. This is absolutely fundamental. If we want to work effectively, that will be crucial, particularly when it comes to digital proof. We need to present a united front so that we can react to fraud. A second point, we must intensify our work in terms of skills. That's something that's already been mentioned. The phenomenon itself is changing. So we need to accelerate our work in that area, particularly given the limited resources. In France, we have a number of different tools that are meant to be more reactive and more specialized in order to react to fraud. And we are continuing to work in terms of innovation, technological innovation, to make sure that we're not lagging behind the fraudsters. And in that area, we also need to adapt our legislation given changes in the fraud phenomenon. That is an essential point where we need to strengthen our cooperation, including at the international level. For example, in France, a number of platforms have been set up to report fraud, as you mentioned also, Minister. And we are also strengthening new tools in France. In 2026, we will have new tools to continue to work across the scale of this phenomenon. And all of this should allow us to scale up and really accelerate our work.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:46:35]:

Thank you so much, Ms. Pedro. And I see an overlap between what. What Lord Hanson said and what you said about international collaboration and the whole of society approach. We appreciate your collaboration with other partners, the European Union. I was wondering what was going on. We appreciate your collaboration with the European Union across all borders and the overlap that I see between what Lord Hanson said and what you also did say. So for you as well, I had a follow up question, but you've addressed it because we wanted to know what specific roles or actions that your country was taking and you taking us through that. So thank you so much. We will now move to Commissioner Magnus Brunner. And the same question for you as well. Our question was that at the beginning of the session, the UNODC and Interpol highlighted the evolving scale and complexity of fraud. And looking at this from your perspective, what does turning the tide, tide and going from commitment to action mean? And what do you see as the top priorities to achieve it? Commissioner, you have the floor.


EU · European Commissioner · Magnus Brunner [1:47:55]:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning to everyone. We're actually very good in, in the assessment and the analysis we are doing. But when it comes to turning the tide and doing more in action, we are on a European level. Of course, we might be a bit complicated. We've got 27 member states, which doesn't make it easy. I'm not talking about France, of course, but maybe some others. But maybe I can give you some examples on what we're doing on the European level, together with the member states, of course, maybe also on three topics in order to improve the whole situation. And improve. Well, there's always room for improvement. Improvement, I would say. So what are we doing concretely? We need, of course, stronger rules. Definitely. I think we all, we all agree on that. To close the digital windows, one digital window after the other. We are working very hard on that. Just to give you an example there, the European Union's Payment Service Directive is one example. What we did in the last, the last months, we also need, and that is probably the Most important, and you were mentioning that as well. We need of course the industry to cooperate with us. This is key. We know that more than 60% of the fraud happens in the European Union are actually on one platform. I'm not mentioning which one now because you might know. So more than 60% on one platform, what a recent study also showed. So concentrate on that. And that's why we have our Digital Service act dsa, which is really important for us and which obliges the very large platforms, the very large online platforms to take also concrete steps together with us on risk assessment on the one hand, but also on mitigation on the other hand hand. And the third and last point I would like to mention is strengthening of course our law enforcement. This is really key as well. Access to data plays an important role there. That's again cooperating with the platforms to be able to detect but also to disrupt and to deter altogether. So our role as a European Union is, is to assist cooperation and also coordination between the member states within the European Union with the member states. I was mentioning that Europol plays a very important role there. We are just negotiating the new mandate for Europol where we want to have a stronger mandate also on the online and the online dimension, boosting the role of Europol there I think is really key and really important. And then we have the impact. You were mentioning that our EU multidisciplinary platform against crime threats, where we also coordinate all the member states, that's the internal part within the European Union. But of course fraud, organized crime altogether is more and more international. So the external dimension is key for us as well. And their cooperation of course cannot stop at the borders. That's why we really concentrate on cooperation with third countries outside the European Union. UK for instance, I think the cooperation is really good between the UK and the European Union, but also with countries in Latin America with got agreements between Europol and countries in Latin America there. And of course key is the cooperation between Europol and Interpol and Europe and Interpol. That is key and we are really working hard on that and I'm very happy that we have a lot of improvement to announce also in the, in the coming months. So this cooperation within the European Union and on an international level I think is key.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:52:00]:

Thank you so much, Commissioner for that. Stronger partnerships, PPPs and anti fraud strategies in the digital space, among other issues I've talked about. So thanks for giving us all those specifics. And I'll turn my attention to Ms. Walsh. Would you like me to repeat the question? Oh, great. Thank you. So your floor is yours, please.


UNODC · Director, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs · Candice Walsh [1:52:21]:

Thank you very much, Ambassador.

I think some of the points I was going to make have already been made and I think that's already a step forward in showing us that we've identified the same priorities and the same need to work together. Filling the data gap is one important element. We've just heard of an updated threat assessment from Interpol which shows just how much things are changing on the ground. And we need to stay on top of that to understand what the new risks and threats are and make sure that we have the responses and systems to that. A second point is, is this need for a comprehensive approach. Part of that is bringing the different stakeholders together, as we're doing here over these days. Part of it is having focusing not only on the law enforcement side, but also on the prevention side and awareness raising and education is a part of it. The other thing, building on something that was highlighted in the earlier Interpol presentation, there is this sort of convergence of cross. So when we're talking about how to tackle fraud, it's not just how to tackle fraud, but it's how to tackle the money laundering, which is of course laundering all the proceeds and is a key and complex part of this. It's looking at cybercrime and how that is being used to exploit this. And in many cases we're starting to see that the groups that are engaged, the transnational organized criminal groups that are engaged in fraud are also engaged in other types of criminality, whether that's trafficking in persons for their forced labor, or whether it's drug trafficking or other kind extortion, other kinds of crime. And so I think it's important that as we're looking at this, that we're not looking at it in one silo, but trying to have a comprehensive approach. And my last point has already been highlighted excellently by the three examples we've heard in terms of operational cooperation. We need to make this work in practice. And that requires strengthening within a country the cooperation between different authorities and different experts that we have, but also working across borders, within regions and at the international level. Thank you.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:54:23]:

Thank you so much, Ms. Walsh, for that. The convergence, awareness, creation and education. I think that's really paramount as we seek to let people know about the menace and the way you, you know, dovetailed into it, into organized crime, transaction, organized crime is something that we need to be aware of. So thanks so much for that. I give the floor. The last speaker in this first segment will be Mr. Egusa. You have the Floor, please. And would you like me to repeat the question? You're okay. Thank you so much. Two minutes, please. Thank you.


INTERPOL · SG · Valdecy Urquiza [1:54:58]:

Thank you, Madam Ambassador. And good morning again, everyone. One, without coordinating our responses today, I believe we came with an agreement on what are those concrete priorities. On the law enforcement side, it's clear the need on enhanced information sharing. It's the information about the threats, the modus operandi, but also about the individuals behind those criminal networks. It's a truly transnational type of crime where you have one organization perpetrating acts in one country where the victims are located in different regions and sometimes using IT infrastructure located in the third country. Without a proper information sharing mechanism, there is no way any law enforcement agencies will be able to identify those individuals. So information sharing is key, and it's important that we use the existing mechanisms for that. Second aspect, also in agreement with my colleagues, is the need for a proper investigative support to national law enforcement agencies. So how do we identify who are the individuals, who are the criminals? How can we make sure that we collect evidence that is needed to have them brought to justice so they can be assessed for the crimes that they have committed? It's important also on that investigation that we work on a strong component on financial investigation. We got to make sure that the assets that those criminal organizations have are identified, that we can freeze them, those assets, in order to avoid that they use the same assets to commit more crimes, and also that we have a chance to compensate the victims of those fraud. And finally, it's about operational, coordinated operational activities. We need to get together countries where the victims are located, countries where the criminal networks are operating. They need to be working together in a coordinated way. And this is why the announcement that was made today by Lord Hanson during his opening remarks is so important to us. The financial and strategic support that the UK is providing now to Interpol, so we can implement operational activities through a dedicated task force focus on dismantling scam centers and dismantling the criminal networks behind it. This will add to other activities that Interpol has already in place where we look to support our member countries, support law enforcement agencies in running the investigation and running the operations activities that are needed to dismantle those networks.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [1:58:03]:

Thank you so much, Mr. Giza, for that, really. Indeed, information sharing, intelligence sharing, proper investigative support, very important. But maybe I'd like to add that also the speed with which we share the information is also very pertinent. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we're done with the first round of our discussion. To give them enough fuel, they are not taxing on the tarmac to take flight, to take off, to give them enough fuel, can we appreciate them, give them a clap for this first round whilst we prepare to take flight into the next session. So round two of our discussions, the time is not looking too good. So I'll give his speaker four minutes to just go over the question that I'm about to ask. And so the first speaker is Commissioner Magnus Bruna. And your question is, what do you think the importance of international frameworks in fighting fraud is and what essential features should they have to be effective? Is that okay?


EU · European Commissioner · Magnus Brunner [1:59:07]:

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, first of all, the good news is that an international framework already exists. Actually just, just one example. The recently signed Hanoi UN Convention Against Cybercrime, which defines actually online scams, establishes rules also for exchange of information. So that's good news. But of course now it's all about bringing it on the ground and bringing it into action. And that is not easy to put these frameworks into, into operation to tackle these quite complex issues, I would say like digital fraud, we need cooperation across different players. Also it's about law enforcement. On the one hand, we mentioned that already. It's about the consumer protection, of course. Also it's about financial, the financial market altogether, financial institutions. And it's of course about the online platforms. So all this cooperation has to be very, very international, as we mentioned before. And also what we need, I think is a more systematic approach. We are not very systematically, or not systematically enough, I would say, just to give you an example, I recently heard a German police officer telling me, which is quite interesting actually, he was only only able to stop a scam because he had the phone number of a colleague of his from Europol who then had the contact to a guy in Hong Kong to a crypto platform in Hong Kong. And they were able together because they had their phone numbers to stop the transfer of about €100,000. And that was by chance in a way, and it shouldn't be by chance. So a more systemic and systematical approach I think would be important. And what we are doing on a European level also to give you an example there, we presented an action plan against digital fraud. So tackling the online fraud, that of course needs cooperation across many stakeholders and having a more holistic approach, I think, and a whole of society approach, I think is key there as well.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:01:43]:

Thank you so much. Do I take the points that you raised because we know about the fact that the European Commission is about present an action plan against digital fraud. The main axis around this digital. The action plan. Do we take it that you've addressed them in your response or you would like to touch on them briefly? Maybe 30 seconds. The action plan that the European Commission is about to roll out. The main axis. Maybe 30 seconds.


EU · European Commissioner · Magnus Brunner [2:02:13]:

Yeah.

Just to give you an example, we actually built on. On some successes we had already with some member states and the U.K. by the way, we were very successful in our cooperation. We have to build on that Europol just had with eight member states and the UK just worked with eight private companies actually together. And they all together took down an international fishing network, I would say, service which was available actually for any criminals. That is also interesting and generated actually tens of millions of euro there of phishing mails also every month. And criminals could actually purchase a paid subscription, which is also quite interesting. Interesting to the service and access of thousands, ten thousands actually of online accounts for potential victims. So what I wanted to say is we try to build on these successes, also international excesses, but also within the European Union. But for such an operation, you need different things. You need intelligence, of course, intelligence, and also insights from the cyber security companies. That is important. You also need to combine it with the enforcement possibilities, the enforcement power we have of the police, of the judiciary, of course, also to identify, to actually identify the criminals. You also need the ability of financial services that the follow the money approach is key there, to actually trace the proceeds and then stop them. And you also need, I would say, an integrated approach across countries. So this action plan we are presenting is a sort of, well, building on the successes we have. It's actually our, I would say, our map for reproducing and building, as I said, on the successes we have.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:04:32]:

Okay, thank you so much, Commissioner. I now give the floor to Ms. Marie Pierre Vedran. And your question is, how does France see the possibilities to strengthen international cooperation, in particular through its ongoing presidency of the G7? Thank you. Merci.


France · Minister Delegate · Marie-Pierre Vedran [2:04:52]:

Thank you, MODERATOR. Strengthening cooperation is first and foremost strengthening it operationally. It is only through operational cooperation that collectively we can combat fraud which impacts everyone with the same difficulties and in the same manner. So in France, we care quite a lot about the issue of scam centers. That's because it's really symbolic of fraud in general. And it is only through police and judicial cooperation here that we can be effective. That's key. Without a common front, we won't be able to tackle these wrongdoers. And so we're active in many projects. We're leading on certain European mechanisms and then also we will continue investing in national schools and regionally some partners in Africa for an example to develop this shared culture to combat fraud. We've also invested in national police, police centers, upon request of states who also believe in this type of broadened cooperation between police and judiciary. And then also there's Interpol's role in making all of this operational and the UNODCs on the front lines for the implementation of these projects on the ground. Then this cooperation also means adopting shared conventions. The Budapest Convention would be one of them, but also the UN Convention against Cybercrime which we signed in October 2025. Then I would say a cross cutting issue, if we're really hoping to be effective here, would be the matter of victims. This was touched upon many times. We're going to need an information gathering system that produces results and so working on tools, awareness raising. This is also crucial. Ensuring that victims can report on what happened, gain their trust in authority, such that these networks can be dismantled internationally and use said this, France will be presiding G7 following Canada and before the US in 2027. So there will be the Evian Summit chaired by the President of the Republic, which will be from 1417 June. And there will be of course sector specific meetings such as the Ministries of the Interior meeting, which is important for us. Three parts priorities there, combating organized crime, then combating terrorism, and then traffic or smuggling of migrants, which was raised by our Canadian and Italian colleagues. And then the issue of online fraud. All of these will be hot topics on the G7 during the G7 meeting on 19 and 29 to come. And this. And then how about the impact of emerging technologies which are fueling these type of phenomena and which really mean that we need to adapt in turn as we attempt to address these evolving challenges.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:08:31]:

I like the bit about the multisectoral approach and all of those issues that you talked about, the overlap too between international conventions, the Hanoi Convention, which is very important. So thank you so much. I had wanted to find out the issues that Commissioner Bruner mentioned talking about the axis, the main axis under the EU plan, about what you would consider essential to facilitate the fight against foreign fraud online. I think you made some general points on that, but just mention maybe one issue because of the lack of time, just one issue that a measure that you consider essential to facilitate the fight against fraud online. Yes, quickly, 20 seconds, I give you.


France · Minister Delegate · Marie-Pierre Vedran [2:09:25]:

Sorry for that.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:09:27]:

Yes, very briefly.


France · Minister Delegate · Marie-Pierre Vedran [2:09:30]:

Yes, it's quite right. Our investigative services are facing serious difficulties in gathering the elements of proof online. And that is absolutely crucial. It's something we're going to need to make progress on. In particular, criminalization of procedures. So access, which always has to be legitimate and proportional, but when it comes to the operation operational aspect, the encrypted services, all of that is extremely important for progress. Thank you.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:10:08]:

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for highlighting that for us. I'll move on quickly to Mr. Guza. What do you see as the main obstacles in the implementation of the frameworks that have been mentioned around the global fraud and how can they be addressed effectively?


INTERPOL · SG · Valdecy Urquiza [2:10:30]:

So every year we organize under the leadership of our President, that is here today as well, a General assembly where we have chiefs of police and other law enforcement officials meeting from 196 countries. And during the General assembly last year, under the initiative of South Korea, we had a very important discussion on fraud. And also we discussed it and approved a resolution on that as well. And one thing that came from all the discussions we had with all the delegations was about the complexity of the investigations related to fraud. How it's becoming more and more difficult for law enforcement officials to have the tools, the knowledge that is needed for this sort of the investigation, the adoption of AI by criminal organizations. It's also making it harder for the victims to identify when they are being targeted by a scam. Additionally, the use, development of the use of digital means of payment is making very fast and easy to transfer financial assets across borders. And finally, the fact that it is, as we discussed, a transnational crime which requires the collection of evidences in different parts of the globe. So this, I would say, is one of the main challenges we face today. It's the complexity of the environment. And one area that we are supporting in this at Interpol is building capacity in countries around the globe, developing their ability to investigate those crimes, providing the tools that are needed for that as well. We have, for instance, a partnership with Japan, Japan through jica, where we are delivering specific training to our law enforcement partners in different regions of the globe, but especially in Africa. And this we see as a key element because if you don't have all the different law enforcement agencies on the same minimal level of capacity to investigate those crimes, we won't be able to disrupt this type of activity.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:13:04]:

Thank you very much for that.

Indeed.

You've answered the follow up questions. I was going to ask you that from a law enforcement perspective, how does the call to action respond to these obstacles or guide implementation? You talked about building capacity, enabling people and providing the tools. So I take it that is implied you've addressed the follow up question. So thank you so much. Mr. Can this Welsh please tell us Political commitments are only meaningful if they lead to tangible results. And so from your perspective, what will make the biggest difference in ensuring that the call to action translates into concrete impact?


UNODC · Director, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs · Candice Walsh [2:13:43]:

Thank you very much, Ambassador. I think we see here today that there is growing awareness of just how serious this threat is and how important it is to take action. And I think sustaining that political will going forward is going to be critical. Typically, fraud had been seen as something less important and we've seen with the statistics from the UK and others just how that's changed and just how significant it is. I mentioned earlier one key element is updating legal frameworks, many frameworks either, you know, don't treat it as serious as it is, or they're not agile enough to be able to cover the modern forms of fraud that we're seeing that are enabled by cyber and IT and that are increasingly transnational and driven by organized crime. In terms of operational capacities, that's already been touched on by my counterparts. So having specialized in investigative units that prioritize this, that understand the complexity of IT and changing modalities, having units that understand how to carry out financial investigations and using financial intelligence is, you know, as a comprehensive approach to this. And as we've talked about and other colleagues have mentioned, the new Cybercrime convention also gives us tools that we need to be able to tackle the reality of these crimes now that are IT based and transnational. And in that point it is critical that we're looking at effective cross border cooperation. We need to work together to be able to dismantle these criminal networks and not simply move them from one country to the neighboring country in order to avoid detection. And across this we need to have, and we've heard some great examples already about how to increase intelligence sharing between countries, countries across the globe, make sure that we're having joint investigations and operations and having formal international cooperation to ensure that this leads in the end to successful prosecutions and convictions. And the last point maybe is been repeated earlier. Of course we have the benefit today of having both government and law enforcement here, but also the private sector and civil society. And I think going forward we need that kind of joint approach to make sure that we're bringing all of the assets that we have and all of the tools that we have at our disposal to be able to have an effective solution.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:16:14]:

Thank you so much. I want to take it that all that you've outlined means that the UNODC plays a supportive role in implementing the success of these commitments. I was going to to ask you that question, but I think from all that, maybe just very quickly. I'll give you 10 seconds.


UNODC · Director, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs · Candice Walsh [2:16:31]:

Thank you very much.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:16:32]:

I know we're running late.


UNODC · Director, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs · Candice Walsh [2:16:34]:

UNODC is prioritizing this area of work. We see it as critical going forward. And like many of areas of evolving crime, member states need support. And that's where we hope to provide the tools and the technical assistance on the ground and using regional networks that we support to bring to countries together to tackle it. Thank you.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:16:54]:

Thank you so much for keeping it within limits. Now our last speaker in this last segment, we don't seem to have lots of time, is Right Honourable Lord Hanson. Right Honourable. We see you, we hear you, we see what the UK is doing. It's palpable because you've been actively engaged in the global fight against fraud. So what are the key lessons learned that could guide other countries and and partners in strengthening their anti fraud efforts? We give you, we are out of time, but we give you some three, four minutes. I'm sorry.


United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland · Minister of State · Lord Hanson of Flint [2:17:24]:

That's okay. Well, thank you. I think I'm a politician, so I probably would say this, but I think political leadership is absolutely essential. And that doesn't matter whether you're a left wing government, a centrist government or a right wing government. It's about political leadership. I was appointed when my party was won the general election in the UK in July 24th to be the first ever fraud minister in the UK government. And what that means is that the Prime Minister has recognised firstly that fraud is a major threat to the UK for economy, for growth, for crime and for victims. So the first thing maybe is to, if you haven't got somebody who is solely responsible for fraud, ministerially establish somebody. Because what I then have the power to do is the power to convene other departments. So my home office is crime, counterterrorism, security and I deal with that on a day to day basis. But I also can bring in ministers who deal with technology, ministers who deal with foreign affairs, ministers who deal with other issues and to focus on fraud as a whole. And that political leadership I hope has helped us to develop a strategy for the next three years in the UK which is a focused UK response to the political issues, internally transnational, with colleagues in foreign governments and externally, but looks at what is in the interests of the UK as a whole. So secondly I would say then to other colleagues that we as the UK stand ready to support the G7 when France has the chairmanship of the G7 later on to deal with how the G7 responds to this issue, to elevate it to the G20, to have the support of the United nations and to look at how all of the 190plus countries here deal with fraud. Because collectively these are issues that we cannot deal with alone. The criminals are operating in a number of different nations and sectors. They're operating now through this magnificent thing which is in my lifetime has transformed our society through websites, Internet, telecom communications, but which now has a number of downsides that criminals are beginning to exploit. So again, I think political leadership in identifying what are the minimum standards that we want to see in each of our countries, what are the minimum areas of cooperation between, between our law enforcement agencies and then law enforcement can do what it does, which is independently free of political interference, go after bad actors. But we politically are setting a framework that says this is important to our nation, this is important to our international cooperation. And these are things that we want to ensure the private sector has a minimum standard of that it helps support us. Law enforcement has cooperation and we support that politically and for politicians. If there needs to be changes in regulation, legislation at a unilateral state level, we'll try and do it. If it needs cooperation on a European level, we'll try and do it. And if it needs cooperation through the international community, we will show leadership in doing that. So I would say to all of us today, if your politicians aren't engaged, chew their ankles, get them engaged, make them work for you. Because this is a transnational, significant international threat to our economy, to our future as a tackling crime. And the UK is starting to make that difference. And we want to work with colleagues to make that difference as well. And I think we can. But it needs political leadership to back up the law enforcement operations that I know are doing their best to cooperate on an international level.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:21:10]:

Thank you so much for that whole of the society approach political leadership legislations, which dovetails into what I think two earlier speakers talked about, you know, improving our legislation. So thank you so much for that. You touched briefly on the private sector, but I want to be a bit specific that from, from your perspective, what is the value of engaging the private sector and other stakeholders to strengthen the fight against fraud? And you've talked about how UK is doing, but I want you to really give us another 20 seconds of specifics on the value of engaging the private sector because it's very much a formidable part of the call to action.


United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland · Minister of State · Lord Hanson of Flint [2:21:46]:

Well, it's really important that the private sector engages because this is not accusatory, it's not meant to be pointing a finger at anybody. But ultimately, the people that we represent in the United Kingdom, who are our voters, they access issues through their phone, through a website, or through some other form of communication which is run by the private sector. So therefore, we need to have private sector engagement to share information about what are the scammers trying to use, how are the scammers attacking our constituents and consumers, and what do we need to do to both give leadership, potentially give regulatory backup, but also to close those loopholes and because as well, much of the private sector is operating on an international basis. That's why the European Union is extremely significant, that's why the United nations is significant, and that's why major countries involved in these areas need to step up to the plate on this particular issue. What I would like to see if I transform myself five years to the future, I'd like to see minimum standards that we as nations expect of the private sector in partnership with them to show that we are working together because reputationally, it is bad for governments, yes, but actually it's bad for any particular company if fraud is emanating from your platform. It is bad for the people who are working with you if it's emanating from your platform. So it's in the platform and communications industry's interests to improve performance and cooperate with governments as well and with law enforcement agencies. So it's absolutely critical. And what we've tried to do in the UK is get people around the table, analyze the issues, get them to sign up to certain minimum standards, and from the UK's perspective, their voluntary minimum standards at the moment. But if they don't work, we'll have to look at what we do to put some more heat into the system. And that's perfectly fair and proper to do.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:23:49]:

So thank you so much for sharing those insights. I think we can all pick from the lessons, learn lessons and learn from your expertise. So thank you so much. I did say we have room for just 20 seconds of closing statements. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. We took off cruising at a very comfortable altitude and I think now we, we need to think about landing. And for that we will have 20 seconds from each speaker, your closing remarks. And these closing remarks are start first with Ms. Marie Pierre Vedran. And the question is, based on what we have discussed, what is the one key message you would like to leave about how to strengthen global efforts against fraud?

Microphone for the speaker, please. The speaker's microphone isn't working.


France · Minister Delegate · Marie-Pierre Vedran [2:24:43]:

Picking up from what my British colleague said, it is exactly international cooperation being strengthened. The UNODC plays a fundamental role together with Interpol. And in terms of cyberspace also, that is fundamental because we've been seeing since this morning this affects all of us. It's a phenomenon that is increasing rapidly. It affects states, companies and citizens. So that international cooperation needs to be strengthened and effective if we want to act.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:25:30]:

Thank you so much for those very inspiring closing remarks. I now turn my attention to Right Honourable Lord Hanson to give us his 20 seconds. Closing remarks. You have the floor, please.


United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland · Minister of State · Lord Hanson of Flint [2:25:40]:

Okay. I would say sign the charter, number one, go away from today energised and look at what you are doing as an international partner with our colleagues. Generally identify somebody politically responsible for this issue in your own countries and contribute to the G7, G20 United nations efforts to focus on what are the four or five simple key things that we need to progress? Because we can't think of 50 actions, we need to think of four or five key actions. And I think out of these couple of days have here there's a direction of travel. But it needs political leadership to help coordinate the political response to what our colleagues in law enforcement are doing. And I would suggest that that is for me, my key message for you today.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:26:32]:

Thank you so much, Lord Hanson, for those closing remarks. I now turn my attention to Commissioner Bruner, your key message that you want to leave on how to strengthen global efforts against fraud.


EU · European Commissioner · Magnus Brunner [2:26:44]:

Yeah, thank you. I think it's all about cooperation. Definitely. It's cooperation on a political level, political leadership, as you mentioned, but it's also about cooperation with the industry. I think that is really key with the platforms that is really important to get the data we actually need to investigate, but also to prosecute at the end of the day. And also creating, I would say, a supportive legal framework also for cooperation on the legal side on the one hand, but also on the operational side on the other hand. So it's all about cooperation, getting also the right tools for our law enforcement. That is key as well. They're always one step behind, as we like to say. So closing the gaps there is important. And again, cooperation.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:27:34]:

Thank you so much. Closing gaps, operational issues, legal cooperation, cooperation. Thank you so much. I now turn my attention to Mr. Valdezi Yogiza to give us his closing remarks.


INTERPOL · SG · Valdecy Urquiza [2:27:44]:

Thank you.

Thank you. I'd say that we need to turn discussions we have here today and tomorrow into concrete actions. We need to act. It shouldn't be very complicated to implement the idea and the activities we don't need to duplicate things. Let's use the tools and capabilities that are there, that they're present, and let's make sure that we follow the concrete actions that are listed in the call for action. I do believe that we all are ready to really start impacting, really start disrupting the criminal networks behind those crimes.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:28:28]:

Thank you so much for that. Yes, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Let's learn from others and pick up and strengthen what is already available. Thank you so much. Last, but not the least, Ms. Candice Walsh, you have the floor, please. Your closing remarks.


UNODC · Director, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs · Candice Walsh [2:28:40]:

Thank you. I mean, we know organized criminal groups adapt very quickly, constantly, and they work very effectively across borders. We need to do the same. You know, we need to ensure that we have cooperation, that we're working together, that we turn this call for action into real commitment and action on the ground and make sure we have the systems in place to work together and to have an impact and to prevent and combat this crime. Thank you.


Ghana · Permanent Representative · Matilda Osei-Agyeman [2:29:08]:

Thank you so much for those words. Well, Excellencies, ministers, my colleagues, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the end of a very exhilarating session. If I may say so myself, I truly enjoyed it. And so, as we conclude this session, we've seen the value of grounded action in evidence. With insights from the UNODC and Interpol highlighting the scale, complexity and evolving nature of global fraud. We then turned from commitment to action, introducing the call to action on combating fraud, one of the main key outcomes of the summit. Many partners have already endorsed this call to action and we encourage others to do so before the 31st of March. Indeed, we've aligned what to do after the 31st of March. Through our high level discussion, our distinguished panelists shared lessons learned, identified priorities and emphasized the importance of proactive, victim centered and whole of the society strategies. Along with collaboration across sectors and international cooperation. I believe that the message is clear. Political commitment, when paired with evidence, sustained action and effective collaboration, can deliver meaningful impact against against fraud. I would like to warmly thank you all for your attention and for your participation, as well as our distinguished speakers for this very insightful and the insights that they shared. We thank your leadership and your engagement. So for us distinguished ladies and gents, whether your glass is half full or half empty, you have something here to pick from to enhance your collaboration, to start from somewhere and to make this global fraud an area that we can all arrest together. With that, I'm pleased to close this session and look forward to continue these exchanges throughout the global Fraud Summit Ladies and gentlemen, please appreciate your distinguished panelists. Thank you.


Speaker 61 [2:31:33]:

Thank you. Very much. We are very grateful to the distinguished panelists and to Her Excellency, Ms. Matilda Jose Agiman, the Moderator of the First Plenary Session, Primary representative of Ghana to the United Nations. It is now my pleasure to call upon a representative of our host country, Austria, that's been hosting the UN compound in this city, in this country for we are approaching 50 years. My pleasure to call upon Mr. Alexander Pearl, the State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria, who will share some reflections with us on behalf of our roscuntry. Sir, Please.


Austria · State Secretary for Digitalization · Alexander Pröll [2:32:32]:

Excellences, Director General. Secretary General. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor to welcome you to Vienna. I thank un, ODC and INTERPOL for organizing the summit here at Vienna International Center. As State Secretary for Digitalization, I see the immense benefits of our connected world every day. But we must be honest. The digital space is also the new front line for organized crime. Fraud knows no borders. Cyber trading fraud, phishing and the misuse of AI are growing every day. They damage trust in digital services and they cause financial and psychological harm to the victims. The numbers from Austria are 68% of all fraud cases are Internet fraud. Total damage in 2025 was around 200 million euros. Cyber trading fraud alone cost 117 million euros in damage. And behind every number is a person, a family that lost its savings, an elderly person who trusted the wrong message, a young entrepreneur whose identity was stolen. Fighting digital fraud is therefore a top issue for the Austrian Federal Government. But digitalization fraud does not only create problems, it also offers powerful solutions to fight back. Data analytics, AI and cross border information sharing. Health help detect fraud before they happen. Technology alone is not enough, however. We need trust, coordination and cooperation. With campaigns like 10 Days Against Phishing and close collaboration with private sector partners. We have already taken important steps. Criminals adapt to new technologies. Our response must be equally fast and international. And this summit, ladies and gentlemen, sends a clear signal we are facing this challenge together. Technology can deceive, but it can also protect, verify and bring justice. I wish you a productive summit. Thank you so much.


Speaker 63 [2:35:24]:

Thank you.


UNODC · Giovanni Gallo [2:35:25]:

Thank you very much, State Secretary Pro, for your kind words. They reconfirmed the role of Vienna, the role of Austria as a world capital of multilateralism. We now move on to the second and last plenary session of the morning before we break for lunch. We heard this several times in the course of the morning of the importance of public and private worlds coming together. This summit is a demonstration of it and to dive exactly into that sphere of the work. The next session is entitled Stronger Together Aligning Private and Public Sectors Against Fraud. I invite the panelists to take their seats on stage while I call upon the moderator of this session, Mr. Yorai Haberham, the Managing Director of the Global Anti Scam Alliance. Global Anti Scam alliance, which I'm proud to say is one of the sponsors of today and tomorrow's Global Fraud Summit. Mr. Abram, over to you.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [2:36:48]:

Perfect.

Thank you. I would like to welcome you all to what may well be the most consequential conversation happening at this summit. And I realize we are between you and lunch, but I think it's important because. Because a multi sector response is at the core of ensuring that fraud is prevented and stopped. Fraud is now among the most common crimes in many countries. A trillion US dollar global epidemic that no single actor can fight alone. Today we launched the Global Public Private Partnership Framework Against Fraud. A landmark commitment to change how we fight back together. I would like to briefly introduce myself. My name is George Abraham and I'm the Managing Director of the Global Anti Scam Alliance. We are non profit and we try to bring together all the stakeholders on a global level. Governments, law enforcement, banks, telecom operators, social media, consumer protection to define better solutions together on the how we can counter this threat. With me today is my panel and I would like to briefly introduce them. Minister Edwin Tong, Singapore Minister for Law and the second Minister for Home affairs whose government has become a global benchmark for bold joint up anti scam policy. Minister Cassie Costello, New Zealand's Minister of Customs Associated Minister of Police and Associated Minister of Immigration. Bringing a law enforcement and border perspective to the challenge. Christy Abizait, Vice President of Global Policy and Standards for Trust and Safety at Google. Leading the development and implementation of anti fraud policies that protect billions of users every day across the globe. Catherine Lister, Director of Worldwide Customer Trust at Amazon. With over 20 years bridging the public and private sectors on fraud and consumer protection. Mr. Ian Stewart, group customer and culture director at HSBC. With a very long and storied career in financial services and a front row seat to the scale of what fraud threats customers face and what the financial industry is doing to reduce those. And finally, Nell McCarthy, Vice President of Policy at Meta, overseeing safety, security and content integrity across social network platforms used by billions of people across the globe. Before we start our panel discussion, I would like to ask my panelists a question. Question. Who of you have received in the last 12 months a phishing email, a fake text message or any has been approached by a scammer to defraud you? All of you. I'd like to raise the same question to the audience. Who of you have received in the last 12 months a phishing email, a fake text message, or has been approached by a scammer trying to defraud you? Thank you. Actually, I think I've made my case. It is clear that scams have become a global threat of this century. I would like to go to our first question. We have all heard the call of better collaboration, but collaboration is easy to say, but hard to do. It requires trust, legal frameworks, shared incentives, and sometimes uncomfortable transparency. What does genuine, effective public private partnership against fraud actually look like in practice? And what has worked? Minister Tong, may I ask you the question first?


Singapore · Minister for Law / Second Minister for Home Affairs · Edwin Tong [2:40:55]:

Thank you, George. First of all, good afternoon. Real pleasure for us to be here. I think if you look at the number of hands that were up, I think you'll see that fraud, online scams, cybercrime, they're not just a big threat today, but they continue to evolve and will begin to scale up at a level which is going to be exponential in no time. And I think it behoves us to think about this not just from an informal perspective, but from a true partnership perspective. And that has been Singapore's approach, which, with your indulgence, I hope to share with you some of our experiences. We think that in working with the various partners and on this, I think our partners in the online space for dealing with cyber crimes online scams would be the tech platforms. Obviously, a lot of the scams happen on the platforms, but they very quickly transit onto the telco platforms. So one on one with telephones, the lines, and of course the banking system as well. So all three are key partners for us and clear stakeholders in this space. What we think is needed and what we've tried to do is to first implement a very clear framework that is transparent, that is easy to understand, and where the obligations of each of these partners become very clear. What exactly do you need to do when something happens? What are the kinds of directions that you need to comply with and what format and by what time? And I think that's important to have a very clear set of rules around expectations. But secondly, to not just rely on the rules. What we have done in Singapore is to work very quickly, closely with the platforms. We see them as a true partner in all senses, and so we work with them to not just work within the framework of the legislation. I mean, we have powers in Singapore. You can make directions you can give instructions and platforms have to comply. But we are very mindful of how that relationship with the platforms might turn up. And we work with them to design codes of practice. We work out what is it that can be done, what is it that they might have a red line on. And we work as far as we can, collaboratively with the platforms so that when we issue an instruction or a direction under our legislative framework, they will know that they have to comply, but we will know as the government and the enforcement agencies, that they will be able to comply. And so if you take our online Criminal Harms act framework that we've set up a couple of years ago, we've been reasonably successful and the compliance rates have been very high. They approximate 98 to 100% most of the time, almost every time. And so we have a framework that is clear, understandable, understood by the industry, but one in which we continually nurture. But I would say that the. Before I stop, George, one other point that is important is to have a shift in cultural mindset, to think of trying to deal with this no longer from the perspective of the law enforcement agency alone, but to understand that this is something that we have to deal with as a scourge of society in partnership with the key levers. And that does include all the three stakeholders that I mentioned earlier, to see them not just as, as parties involved in the space, complying with the law, issuing directions that they follow, but to really have an equal stake in how we deal with the online scams and the modalities that will continue to evolve and change as technology improves. We do have a shared responsibility framework as well, where we set out clear duties for, say, banks or telcos. What are some of the standards by which you'll be held? And there will obviously be liability ascribed should those standards not be met. And that framework is also something that we design in collaboration with the stakeholders in the industry. And we think that collectively having a good combination of a legal framework that is clear, easily understood, fast, effective, but also one in which was designed on the ground collaboratively is something that works very well. Thank you.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [2:45:22]:

Thank you very much, Minister Tong. And also thank you that Singapore has been one of the first governments to really trying to unite all the stakeholders to counter scams. Thank you, Minister Costello, would you like to add the New Zealand perspective to this?


New Zealand · Minister of Customs / Associate Minister of Police / Associate Minister of Immigration · Casey Costello [2:45:37]:

Thank you very much. First of all, I just. I would also, I'd like to applaud Singapore. They have been very forward leaning and it's an effective example. I think New Zealand has operated on the environment that we are far away and historically organised crime because of our distance we've had that geographical sort of protection and now we know with scamming that this borders mean nothing, geography means nothing and therefore our response has to be a lot more forward leaning. We have established good and I think that was the key question is what does good cooperation look like? What what does this call to action? I think the Right Honourable Lord Hanson mentioned about what is the actions, what is the things that we do. So we have established the anti scam alliance which is a very collaborative partnership. We have not had to rely heavily, heavily on the need for compulsion or coercion. Those corporation partnerships between the telcos, between our social media platforms, between the banks and between enforcement has been really effective at encouraging the information sharing. So delaying banking transactions, the sharing of information proactively has been very effective. Along with our New New Zealand's financial crime prevention network has been established with key banks, our major banks, our cryptocurrency providers, our relevant agencies and that's across government is really important to get across agencies and as governments we tend to. Each government agency tends to work in silos and how we work cooperative. So we have. I've just released the. The government has just released the latest transnational and serious organised crime strategy which is about cooperative relationships between government agencies which has been one of the biggest barriers that we have seen. When we look at crime based upon whether it's customs or it's immigration or it's police, we tend to look at siloed responses. How how we as a government cooperate and share information is a very strong example to how we get the private sector to work more cooperatively with us and that becomes very important. We talked a little bit about the concept of incentives and supporting and celebrating successes and celebrating cooperative relationships. As Minister for Customs in New Zealand we have seen the opportunity to work under board border protect, to allow government agencies to work with private sector to report anomalies, report challenges, report things that just don't look right if you see it, report it mentality and that has been really effective in the border control space. So we believe that the similar example will occur within this scamming space. I think the other part that is really important to recognise that scamming is fraud and fraud being defined and being clearly articulated as what is the problem definition? What are we trying to fight here? And finally this room is the example of what public private partnerships need to look like. This ability for us to work across governments, our cooperation becomes essential as to how we connect better the common enemy that we share here, which to put it in perspective, we are talking about a common enemy that is really agnostic about its commodity. Whether it's drugs or people or fraud or money laundering, any commodity under which they can make profit is the target. And so the more connected we are in our response and the more able and prepared we are to share information, and particularly the more encouraged our enforcement agencies are to respond to requests for information. To respond to requests for enforcement will be really essential in our response to the overall scamming environment. And I think this room is a testament to what those public private partnerships need to look like.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [2:49:55]:

Thank you very much Minister, and also thank you for making clear that scams are no longer something done by a 16 year old teenager. It's global organized crime. Thank you, Ms. Abizaid. Google has been involved in a number of multi stakeholder initiatives against fraud. One of them, the Global Signal Exchange, we even founded together. And now many of our members are joining. What made those partnerships work and what conditions need to be in place before data sharing between companies and governments can actually happen.


Google · Vice President, Global Policy and Standards for Trust and Safety · Christy Abizaid [2:50:32]:

So thank you very much for the, for the invitation here, for the convening on this really important issue. You know, as the Minister talked about, we're dealing with a scam environment that is borderless, that is exploiting the seams between different governments, exploiting the seams between different parts of the industry. And so we've long in Google been a proponent of collective action, of the kind of signals exchange that is going to be essential to understanding our environment, understanding it cross sectorally, understanding it across different governmental spaces and then acting on that, very importantly, acting on that. So let me kind of bring to life a couple of proof points that show the way that we're engaged in this and maybe we'll bring in some of the other panel members as a result. So first of all, you mentioned the Global Signal Exchange. I think that's been an enormously successful initiative launched only a year ago together. And in just a year we've got, I think over a billion signals collected, We've got over 100 different organizations sharing information through this exchange. And it's a real time information sharing platform that not only sort of helps us absorb information, train our large scale classifiers, so we are better inside Google at proactive enforcement, but it also allows us to share back out the kind of signals that we're seeing and encourage the kind of action that's actually going to take down fraud networks all over the world. And we have some examples of that along the way. But so global signals exchange I think is really important. I think it's early days and even in the early days it's provided a significant degree of proof that this collective action, collaboration is the essential thing that leads to action in the real world and that collective responsibility that we have to engage in that forum. A couple of other examples of proof points. We worked with the Singaporean government not too long ago to understand the activity that was happening outside of our Play store, outside of the App Store, understand how scammers were convincing people to what we call side load apps, not download apps from the official stores that scan for malicious content, but go elsewhere and have a fake bank app or other kind of app. And we got really useful information from the Singaporean government that helped us build a fraud prevention capability into the Android, into our Android server surface in a way that prevented the download of, I think it's something like 2.8 million different malicious apps along the way. And it's that kind of free information sharing enabled by so much of what the Minister talked about that is just essential to allowing us to once again collectively act in a way that is fundamentally protective of our users and of the environment. And then just on the question, cross industry collaboration. We've worked with HSBC on anti money laundering detection. You know, when you think about scams and how much that is so intersectional with anti money laundering schemes, our ability to use an AI powered capability that helped HSBC identify suspicious activity on their platform, I think four times as effective as traditional methods, was an incredible win and one that we were then able to extend to other parts of the industry and really see action with the kind of offerings, the kind of collaboration and the kind of technology that really matters in this space.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [2:54:38]:

Thank you very much, Ms. Abizid Katherine. Amazon has been one of the first members of the global anti scam alliance, followed very quickly by Google and Meta. You have always advocated for a whole of society approach, bringing together governments, law enforcement, industry and civil society. Can you point to a specific partnership model that has delivered measurable results against frauds?


Amazon · Director of Worldwide Customer Trust · Catherine Lister [2:55:06]:

No, thank you. I think there is absolutely no one size fits all. The key here, I think is to have the, the right breadth and depth of partnerships to tackle the bad actor problem and remain nimble. And you know, we talk a lot about how we need to make sure that we're matching a bad actor speed. We need to beat them, we, we need to be faster than them. And the only way to do that is really to tackle this problem from all the different perspectives that you see from all of us up here on this panel, we all see fraud completely differently. We see different parts of the pipeline, we see the bad actor engagement, we see the mos differently. And it's only when we put it all together that we're able to put these folks out of business. And that's what we really fundamentally want to be getting to. It's not simply the information sharing for information sharing sake. It's actually getting to the root of the problem and putting the bad actor out of business. And so many of our partnerships, for example, have ranged from collaborating with Microsoft on a case referral into India and shutting down over 70 call centers in one day alone with a raid with the Indian government. We've protected a number of. I was just going to say something and I'm going to change my mind. We've launched a number of education partnerships, including with your organization, to really help folks understand the impact of scams, to try to de victimize and really help folks move from victimization to recovery. We've worked to try to demystify processes for other businesses. Other retailers like ourselves, in partnership with AARP in the United States to produce a best practices guide for retailers to make sure that our practices are clear and transparent to consumers on how they can get help if they're worried. We've worked in a number of different ways to try to sort of get at this in different places. It's going to take all of us, it's going to take government, it's going to take the private sector, it's going to take multiple parts of the private sector and it's going to take a lot of civil society groups too. You all are the single most trusted entities in a lot of these rooms and we can't outrun these bad actors unless we're all working together faster.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [2:57:35]:

Thank you very much. Mr. Stewart, during the prep call, I learned that you actually have been fighting scams longer than I have. Would you like to comment?


HSBC · Group Customer and Culture Director · Ian Stewart [2:57:45]:

Well, thank you. I don't know if that's an endorsement to my abilities or not, but. Well, I think first of all it's an absolute pleasure to be here. And secondly, the conversation this morning is really what I will build on. But as we've constantly heard this morning, this is a huge, fast growing industry and it is global. And I was the CEO of HSBC in the UK for nine years. So I think, I think fraud has really got much more sophisticated in the last 10 years and unfortunately I've had a ringside seat for that. I think it's taken a long time to get everyone to the table. I think we thought as a bank we were fighting a loan battle for a long time and now that we have have got people around the table, I really urge us to stay around the table because I completely agree with what you said. If we stay linked up and joined up, we've got a much better chance of cracking this. But let me be under no illusions, when you get a ringside seat. This is a highly sophisticated, multi layered industry and there's no way one party can cure it. No one government, no one bank, no one authority. It is far too sophisticated. Unless we're all joined up sharing data, we will not succeed. It's really, really that important. That's why I believe a shared responsibility and with proactive, coordinated prevention and I really think prevention is better than cure, then we've got a chance to make life really, really difficult for the bad actors. I'm a great believer in tackle the root cause now in the banking industry in the UK we have to pay back a lot of the fraud. So if people are taken for a scam, we have to pay that back. Let me assure you that focuses the mind. So for hsbc, fraud is a one billion dollar industry per annum. It is a very big number. So it focuses the mind and again we know that not one party will be able to stop that. The battleground today is unauthorised push payments. Scams are the battleground today. Customers are groomed for weeks and sometimes months and lose their money. And we do get to see some of that and it is an absolute heartbreak when you hear some of the stories. Every single day in my nine years as the CEO of the UK bank, I would see a story of heartbreak and it destroys lives, it destroys society, so we should take it seriously and that's why it's so good to see many people here today. Our partnerships with Google and other tech providers is good, our partnership with the government is good. But again, we must stay joined up. And as I say, it is a massive industry in the banking world and we're determined to play our part and that's why it's a privilege to be here and speak to you today.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:00:41]:

Thank you very much Mr. Stewart. I think a very clear message, Ms. McCarthy. Last but certainly not least, public private partnership in the fraud space often struggle to move beyond information sharing to coordinated action. Can you point to a specific collaboration between Meta and a government or law enforcement partner that produces produced a measurable outcome and what made it work?


Meta · Vice President of Policy · Nell McCarthy [3:01:08]:

Sure.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. And I recognize that I am the last speaker on the last panel before people get to eat. So I will be brief, but I guess I get to tell sort of the good news story. As the fraud ecosystem has evolved and all of these partners on the stage are becoming more collaborative and the platforms have come to the table, we do get to tell some good stories. So even just in the last few weeks, we've had a number of opportunities to partner with law enforcement. I think the most significant was probably in Bangkok. I know New Zealand was a partner there. The uk, the United States, the law enforcement agencies and the platforms were able to disrupt scam centers, disrupt organized crime. It resulted in, I think, nearly a half dozen arrests. Meta took down 150,000 accounts in one fell swoop. I couldn't agree more that this problem has multiple stages. And so when I think about my ability to have an impact, taking down someone's Facebook account is not the end of the world. Right. It is not the same thing as law enforcement activity. But us being able to come to the table and take down the entire network and these networks are sprawling, I think does move the needle. So we're delighted to participate in those engagements. We've also been working with government partners, bank partners, to both share intelligence and to participate in these education programs. The perfect scam is one where you don't know you participated until so long after it happened. You don't remember how you got involved in the first place. Right. You don't remember where the phone call came from, where the ad you saw ran. And so helping people with that education, with those prevention tools, We've made several announcements in the last few weeks about how we're encouraging people to think harder, to better understand, and to actually get warnings from us that someone who looks like a friend is actually a phone number from a different country, someone who's added them to a group is not someone that they already were connected to to remind people to put those, put that radar up and look for the red flag, which, of course, we don't. We don't want people coming to our platform and having an experience where they feel like they got scammed or they feel like we're having to warn them of all these problems. But we definitely are seeing results there. We're doing it. Some of these education campaigns in partnerships with banks, in partnerships with security agencies, sorry, securities agencies, as opposed to security, because we know that financial services are so much a part of this through our relationships, through fire, which is one of our information sharing partnerships with over 50 banks. We've tackled romance scams over the last few years and seen positive results there. So we know. I guess I'm happy to say that when everyone's working together, we actually do see these results. We're focused on outcomes. I think Lord Hanson has directed all of us to be focused on outcomes and we're happy to be in that space.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:04:14]:

Thank you very much. And also thank you for stressing that really everybody can get scammed. It doesn't matter what your background, what your education is. I would like to go back to you, Minister Wong, with the next round of questions and I have to ask the panelists to keep the answers within two minutes. Fraudsters move fast and they share tools, they share data freely and operate across jurisdictions without any frictions. The legitimate actors, we trying to stop them, but often cannot share data. We might even face liability risks or are waiting for regulatory clarification what needs to change in law, in policy, and maybe even in culture to tip the balance in our favor.


Singapore · Minister for Law / Second Minister for Home Affairs · Edwin Tong [3:05:02]:

Thank you. As I was thinking about this question, I was reminded this morning, just this morning at breakfast in a conversation I had with Lucas Felipe from Interpol, and he said that the online scammers and the criminals, well, they exist at the gaps which exist at intersections that we have between say, policy, law, culture, education. And I thought that's really something that we need to close ranks on. And I've been listening to my colleagues on this panel. I think the consensus here really is that what we need is an all of society systemic response. And I thought perhaps I'll illustrate that with reference to what we've done in Singapore. We set up an anti scam command some years ago. And the anti scam command is one example of a public and private partnership in that right next to our scam, anti scam officers, we have the banks, they're seated right next to within, literally within touching distance of our officers from the anti scam command. So that the moment there is receipt of information that there is a scam, there is an account, there is a, there is a transaction that is taking place that is suspicious within moments, we can reach out to literally with a tap on the shoulder of a colleague from the banks and say, can we deal with this? Can we slow it down, can we put some friction in the transfer? And so on. And that I think is an illustration of the responses that we had. Beyond that, I like what my colleague said earlier about going upstream, going downstream. Ian said prevention is better than cure. We agree, but sometimes you do need to find a cure as well. So after the monies have left the victims, what do we do to try to slow it down? What do we do to work with our counterparts in different countries? Because as you know, online scams, what they share in common is there's a very strong cross border element. And the belief by scammers is that once the money leaves the jurisdiction in which the scam occurred, it's going to be very hard to track down. But can we do more as different countries marrying up our different laws, trying to allow the scammers less room to arbitrage between the laws? We also do a lot on education. How do we teach the vulnerable in our society that if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true? And the reality is that the most vulnerable in our society, the seniors, those who I heard love scared scams earlier, those who are emotionally vulnerable, those are seniors, I think they are particularly susceptible. So what can we do education wise? We also developed an app, this is downloaded properly, not sideloaded, an app called Scam Shield. And what it does is that it aggregates all the information that we have collectively from all the different reports that we have of numbers, phone numbers or website or online material that is potentially fictitious or suspicious. And we aggregate that data and we use an AI to go over it. And if you downloaded the app into your mobile phone, every time you receive a number from one of these suspicious or previously flagged suspicious accounts, it would flag it to you. It will warn you ahead of time before you even pick up the call. So things like that is going upstream a lot more prophylactically to try to help to prevent as much as we can prevent the scams from happening. In Singapore, we also passed the Protection from Scams act, which was a bit novel in the sense that it's quite usual for banks to be able to freeze the account of the perpetrators or the suspected perpetrators. But in our new piece of land legislation, we have been able to apply powers to freeze the accounts of the victims as well. Sometimes victims are manipulated. They are, as I said just now, susceptible. And from time to time we do come across victims who so believe in what they're doing and what they're trying to send money to a cause they believe in, that the family members and others have to intervene in those cases. We have found that piece of legislation useful. It came into force around the middle of last year and we've had to use it about 12, 13 times since. And it's proven effective. So I think what we really need to do as a community is to look at it within each of our jurisdictions on a systemic basis, across all the different levers that we have. But as far as we can, such as in today's gathering, to think of what else we can do cross the border wise, because that really is the real stand in the system when it comes to allowing scammers to reducing the ability for them to send monies overseas and to quickly dissipate the funds of the ill gotten gains.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:09:50]:

Thank you, thank you very much, Minister Tong, Minister Costello. How can we tip the balance?


New Zealand · Minister of Customs / Associate Minister of Police / Associate Minister of Immigration · Casey Costello [3:09:58]:

I think the fundamental thing, and I thank Ian for mentioning it, is to culturally our shift has to be recognising this is not financial crime, it's crime against a person. That at the heart of all of this there is a person who's paying a human cost. And when we talk about it in terms of financial sectors and telcos, we sometimes lose sight of the human cost. And those of us who work in the frontline environment will understand that human cost, and that's the, the cultural shift that I think we can all focus on within this room is to go back and recognise this is a crime against a person. At the very heart of it, someone is handing over money and that human cost is real. And that's the cultural shift that I think gives us the social license to change laws, to change policy, to strengthen our enforcement response. When we are protecting vulnerable people, there is a far greater tolerance from the public to strengthen our response. The other component in terms of a policy platform that I think we need to do a lot better is supporting our enforcement agencies to respond quicker, to ensure that this is a priority for our responses, that when we call for information, when we call for interventions to target the bad actors, that we are cooperating, that we are responsible, responding quickly and we still keep this as a priority across enforcement agencies. I think at an operational level, enforcement agencies work very well together and sometimes it is at the government level that we slow things down, allowing those agencies to work from a policy perspective to respond as quickly as they can. From a legal point of view, New Zealand is focused on the safe harbour protections for those who do intervene and slow down banking transactions and close accounts, that we recognise that sometimes good intentions should be acknowledged and supported. And that's why the safe harbour legislation becomes really important. I think that fundamentally when we talk about human cost, it's preying on the human nature. And I always think about my father on Facebook many years ago who was accepting very odd friend requests because fundamental Fundamentally he thought it was rude to decline. And that is the type of vulnerability that they focus on is that general inherent desire to be nice and to do good and accept it. And that is that cultural shift that I think we need to work on. And across this panel I think you've seen the examples of the opportunities of what we can do when we do cooperate and work better and put humans at the heart of these decision making making.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:12:37]:

Thank you very much Minister Costello. Ms. Abizaid, we discussed regulation, but what do you need needs to change in the culture of how public and private sectors work together, how can we really sustainable collaborate?


Google · Vice President, Global Policy and Standards for Trust and Safety · Christy Abizaid [3:12:54]:

So I would echo what we've heard throughout, which is this is a whole of society problem and we really need to, to think collectively about our responsibility to work together to address the problem. And you know, that problem isn't just the individual attack that affects real people's lives as we were just talking about. It's a problem that at the end of is an international criminal organization that needs to be stopped. You know, I come from intelligence community background. We always talked about in my old counterterrorism days that it takes a network to defeat a network. And when we think about the kind of signal sharing that we have to do, we think about the exploitation cycle of getting information from government, processing it and understanding it in the private sector and then bringing it back back to government to actually see action against the bad guys. That's the kind of flywheel approach that we all need to think about as not just an information sharing imperative, but an information sharing imperative that leads to intelligence led operational impacts on the ground. You know, we've got a good example of this. I think we've all mentioned good examples of this. In our partnership with the UK National Crime Agency through the Global Signals Exchange, they provided something like 5,000 signals from which we developed leads on only four URLs, but then discovered at the end of those URLs a Nigerian criminal network that we were able to develop a criminal referral on. And even as we were enhancing our internal systems, as we were removing artifacts as associated with this, that law enforcement was able to take action and eliminate that crime ring from action. And it's that kind of collaboration that is, that is just going to be required over and over and over again. That means the kind of information sharing that we're doing in real time as we improve internally that can actually lead to impacts on the ground.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:15:07]:

Thank you very much, Ms. Abizid. Ms. Lister. It was already stressed international cooperation is essential. But how Are we going to do it? How are we going to tie the national networks to an international network? And who should be driving this architecture?


Amazon · Director of Worldwide Customer Trust · Catherine Lister [3:15:24]:

It's a really good question. I think, you know, the way that we think about it is there are national frameworks that are really the building blocks and it's going to be that international cooperation and that international collaboration that really, I think accelerates the flywheel that you were just talking about. We have some terrific country specific endeavors that are happening right now. Uk, Australia, Japan, Italy, Singapore, South Africa. Those are the ones that I can think of right now. There are hundreds of countries here, millions of countries here, but there's a lot of really great effort at the state level. The problem is, as we heard in our very first opening keynote, is that fraud knows no boundary. And so we have to work together. And when Ian said, you know, the banks have been tackling this for a lot longer and thinking they've been here alone, it's horrifying to think that in some ways we're still there, we're all still trying to fight this individually and we can't do that anymore. We have to get into the information sharing, the quick collaboration, the call and response between law enforcement and private sector with a government framework. And it's going to really take that government framework, private sector building to that framework and the civil society sort of reinforcing and keeping that ear to the ground as the trusted voice of consumers.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:16:48]:

Thank you very much, Ms. Lister. Mr. Stewart. Fraud knows no boundaries.


HSBC · Group Customer and Culture Director · Ian Stewart [3:16:54]:

Fraud knows absolutely no boundaries. Well, let me give you three things I would try and endorse to make it easier for our customers. The first one is regulation. And I think Lord Hanson positioned it really well today about what the UK government is trying to do. I would have gone a step further. You'd expect me to say that because we get caught in a very tight regulatory environment. But we're one party in that regulation environment. I would like all parties in that regulatory environment. If you all had to operate the same regulatory standards as the banks do, fraud would come down the second point. And I checked the statistic the other day. We monitor 1 billion payments per month, every month as a bank, 1 billion payments. And it's really difficult to stop any of these payments even when we know there's fraud in there, because the customers often insist that the payment goes. And if you put grit into the system we now operate in the immediate economy, everyone wants everything yesterday in the last five minutes, you can't really slow it down. But let me assure you, faster payments means Faster fraud. So the ability to step in and slow some of those down to at least get a chance to confirm with the customer would definitely help. And the third point, and this may surprise you because I this always surprises me, is that if we choose to exit an account, which is quite a difficult process, if we choose to exit an account because of bad actions or a bad actor is present in our bank, there's nothing goes on that customer's profile. So that customer can have the account closed and go around the corner corner to another bank the same day, or go online and open another account just as easily. That to me is kind of crazy. We have to put something in place so that banks know that these are bad actors. And those are just three things I would do very, very quickly which I'm sure would cut fraud.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:18:52]:

Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart. Ms. Nell McCarthy. Mr. Stewart was already saying we need to sometimes to slow down things. What would be your wish? How can meta fight scammers better?


Meta · Vice President of Policy · Nell McCarthy [3:19:06]:

I just have two things. You told us to be quick, so similar space. I think we need policy harmonization. We need to understand what the rules are and we need safe harbors so that good actors aren't penalized. All these laws go into effect for good reason and they of course have downstream consequences that we weren't anticipated when we were solving a problem of 10 years ago. And they're now blocking quick, agile responses to the problems of today. And so I think working through how we're going to create an environment where all of the information sharing that we've talked about can happen faster. Not necessarily the payment, but the people up here being able to share information. But if it takes us 3 months, 12 months, 18 months to sign an agreement with one platform and one bank, or one bank and one government, we're already 18 months behind. It means a year from now we're not going to be able to tell you about the same good results because not as much will have gotten done. So figuring out what that space is going to look like, that we are able to sign these agreements quickly and ensure that the information stays protected, but is going back and forth between parties that that will use it to block scams is critical.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:20:22]:

Thank you very much for your two wishes. Ms. McCarthy, we're nearing the end of our panel discussion and we're going to formally launch the global Public Private Partnership Framework against fraud. A framework built on shared principle and collective commitment. I'm going to challenge you all to give an answer in 30 seconds in one clear actionable recommendation. What is the Single most important thing that public and private sectors must do differently together to bring this framework into practice successfully. Minister Wong, may I start with you?


Singapore · Minister for Law / Second Minister for Home Affairs · Edwin Tong [3:21:01]:

Well, it's challenging, but I think that what we need is a framework that is of course, robust. And we've heard in a round panel all the suggestions on how tight it can be, how strict it can be, how much more robust it can be. But I think for all of us, the challenge as policymakers and as government officials is to make it practical, to make it usable, because you can't. As much as we want to slow down transactions so that we can catch up with the fraudsters, we need to also operate an economy. We need to also operate a banking system. So I think the one wish I would have have for the framework is for it to be practical and to be balanced, nuanced, so that we are able to not just deal with the fraud and the fraudsters and allow us to catch up with them, but that we can also at the same time be running a system that is efficient, commercially viable, that is sensible, and that moves at a pace that is reasonable enough for commerce to take place.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:21:55]:

Thank you very much, Minister von. Minister Costello.


New Zealand · Minister of Customs / Associate Minister of Police / Associate Minister of Immigration · Casey Costello [3:21:58]:

I'll be very within my 30 seconds. And I think is the key component is don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Take steps forward, keep moving forward, and don't boil the ocean and try to come up with our solutions.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:22:12]:

Thank you very much.

This was a very quick answer.


Google · Vice President, Global Policy and Standards for Trust and Safety · Christy Abizaid [3:22:17]:

Invest in the global signals exchange. You know, look, whatever information sharing scheme we should all sign onto, we need to find ways to incentivize that information sharing and make it happen in real time. You know, we don't have time to wait and to waste. And so the way that we can all work collectively within a shared framework to get the information together and build the picture of what we're fighting together, that's absolutely critical.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:22:46]:

Thank you.


Amazon · Director of Worldwide Customer Trust · Catherine Lister [3:22:47]:

Join us. I think you're looking at people up here on this panel who have invested a lot of years, a lot of time and effort into this. There are a number of you in the audience who I know. If this is news to you, come find us, come work with us. This only gets better if we all do more together.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:23:05]:

Thank you very much. Mr.


HSBC · Group Customer and Culture Director · Ian Stewart [3:23:07]:

I would like to change shared responsibility to shared accountability. We are accountable for our customers. That is the industry we're in. We're in the customer service industry. We must look after our customers and anyone who's been involved in a scam or a fraud, you know, it's Abject misery. So if we take accountability together in partnership, I'm sure we can move leaps and bounds over the next 10 years. But let's not be looking back saying this is an opportunity missed. This is an opportunity we need to get our arms round and take accountability.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:23:41]:

Thank you, Mr. Seward.


Meta · Vice President of Policy · Nell McCarthy [3:23:43]:

And I'd say adopt your approach so that it meets the principles outlined in the framework. We should all, as part of our collaborative effort, let's normalize the way we're fighting this battle so that people know what to expect, that we don't get caught up in trying too long to figure out how this law is going to do this and that law is going to do that. Let's take the fight to where the problem is.


Global Anti Scam Alliance · Managing Director · Yorai Abraham [3:24:08]:

Very clear. Thank you very much, Mr. McCarthy. So I'd like to conclude this panel discussion. I think it's clear that whether government, the tech sector, banking, every speaker has pointed out the same truth. The fraudsters are already collaborating and we do really need to catch up urgently. My key takeaways are that the scale of fraud demands to be treated as a national security issue and not just a consumer affairs after fault. Effective PPPs require legal enablement, safe harbors, data sharing frameworks and clear shared accountability. All stakeholders must be full partners, not bystanders. We all need to raise the bar. Prevention is cheaper, faster and way more humane than recovery. National strategies are essential as they are the building blocks for international solutions. I'd like to thank each of our panelists. Minister tong, Minister Costello, Ms. Abez Reeds, Ms. Lister, Mr. Stewart and Ms. McCarthy. Please give them a warm applause. We heard a lot about public private partnership today. This is why I'm very proud to be launching this framework document alongside my panelists, the United Nations, Interpol and many, many of you in the audience. This is truly a significant step forward in the global fight against fraud. It represents a one of a kind global commitment to fight fraud at every element of the scam attack chain, where government, law enforcement and the financial intelligence units, the private industry and civil society truly work together. It serves as a model framework in all of your countries and all of your industries on how to build an effective response. This is a voluntary commitment representing a genuine desire to fight fraud, but allows you to implement it in a way which makes sense in your country. The framework which you see behind me is built on six core principles. The first principle is shared responsibility. The idea that no single actor can tackle organized fraud alone and that governments and the private sector must work as genuine partners. The second principle is proactive and coordinated prevention acting ahead of fraud rather than simply reacting to it. The third principle is recognizing that information sharing is the backbone of effective cooperation against fraud. Timely, trusted data exchange between public and private actors can make all the difference. The fourth principle places victims at the center where they should be, ensuring that those harmed by fraud receive meaningful support and are not left to navigate complex systems alone and that we can learn from them and their experiences to develop better responses. Effective prevention also depends on awareness and and that's the fifth principle focusing on education, equipping individuals, communities and businesses with the knowledge to recognize and resist fraud. And finally, the sixth and final principle recognizes that fraud is constantly evolving and so must our responses. Innovation and adaptability are essential to staying ahead of increasing sophisticated criminal networks. This framework represents a set of shared principles designed to orient and align our collective responses to fraud and to give that shared commitment real weight. We open it for endorsement by the States, the private sector and civil society. And I'm really very happy to share that. Up to this moment the Framework has received the commitment of 80 free counterparts. The original idea was to name them all now plenary but we are having lunch so we'll skip that part. But 16 states have committed three international organizations, 55 private sector entities and nine civil societies. We are deeply grateful to each and every one of them for their commitment commitment to this shared cause and we warmly encourage all those who have not yet had the opportunity to add their voice to this growing coalition. You can endorse the Framework by signing it in the dedicated endorsement room MOA63 or through sending an endorsement letter to the UNODC. Please consult your endorsement guide for further information. We will have an update on of the endorsement of both outcomes at the end of today. Also, I would like to say something about the pledges. Both the Public Private Partner Framework and the Call Actions on Combating Fraud only come true through concrete commitments and pledges are the key instrument in translating shared values into tangible actions. States, private sector entities and civil society each bring a distinct role. Pledges reflect this diversity and the complementary nature of the partnership. To date we have received 44 pledges and we would like to acknowledge the States, the private sector entities and civil society organizations that have already made the these pledges. We are recognizing their leadership in moving from endorsement to action. Their early commitments send a strong signal to the broader international community and sets the standard for others to follow. We are inviting all others to consider submitting a pledge to strengthen the global response to fraud. I would like to thank you all for coming here all this way. And I look forward to working with you to make to protect consumers worldwide Worldwide better from scams. Thank you very much. Have a lovely lunch. Thank you.


UNODC · Giovanni Gallo [3:31:09]:

Many thanks. Mr. Yorai Abraham, managing Director of the Global Antiscam Alliance Excellencies Business leaders. Time has come for most deserved lunch break. Before that, I would like to mention the rich program of side events, special events and already started. I would like to invite ministers, Deputy Ministers, Head of Law enforcement, an equivalent to leave the room from the back door. Staff will be there identify themselves for a group photo. We will then reconvene at 3 o' clock sharp here in the plenary for a session moderated by the President of Financial Action Task Force. In the meantime, in loop, there will be QR codes to several publications that were mentioned or launched today. In particular, the Global Financial Fraud threats assessment by Interpol, a public private partnership toolkit by UNODC and a publication on effective strategies to prevent organized fraud. Thank you all. Enjoy your lunch. See you again at 3pm Bye bye.