Tackling Organized Fraud: A Way Forward from the Global Fraud Summit

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Good afternoon and welcome. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It is a true pleasure to welcome you all to this high level event, tackling organized fraud, a way forward from the Global Fraud Summit. It has been organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, together with the governments of Nigeria, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Vietnam, as well as Interpol. Organized fraud is a significant and growing transnational threat that requires a strong international response. It has evolved significantly over the years, adapting to technological advancements and changes in society, enabled by information and communication technologies, and affecting almost everyone in society. One of the most alarming manifestations of organized fraud is the rise of the large scale scam operations, frequently called scam centers in parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, but now also found in Africa and Latin America. This model illustrates starkly how organized fraud does not operate as an isolated offense, but as a hub crime that draws together and reinforces multiple forms of exploitation. The scale of this threat is now of global concern. No country, community, or sector is immune. Every year, organized fraud inflicts significant financial losses on individuals, businesses, and public institutions, losses that divert resources from development, from public services, and from the security of households. UNODC's mandate on organized fraud derives from its role as guardian of the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, which applies to serious transnational crimes involving organized criminal groups. This mandate has grown steadily stronger with resolutions calling for accountability of legal persons, stronger cooperation with the private sector, and protection for victims. The Global Fraud Summit, co-organized by UNODC and Interpol in March 2026, was a landmark event. It brought together high-level representatives from governments, law enforcement, the private sector, and civil society to strengthen cooperation and turn commitments into concrete action. To share more on what has been achieved since the summit and what lies ahead, it is now my great pleasure to welcome Ms. Monica Juma, Executive Director of UNODC and Director General of the United Nations Office at Vienna. Ms. Juma, you have the floor.

Minister Luong, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. This session offers us an opportunity to discuss how we can strengthen our responses to organized fraud. Fraud often begins with something very simple, trust. A message that looks legitimate, a voice from a loved one that sounds familiar, the promise of a job that seems credible. While many of these methods are still around today, The fraud landscape has changed significantly in the scale, the speed, the reach, and the way it is organized and carried out. What we are up against is a sophisticated criminal enterprise built around deception and exploitation. Criminal networks are recruiting vulnerable people, moving money across borders seamlessly, and infiltrating legitimate digital and financial services. And increasingly, fraud is converging with other forms of organised crime. We see this most clearly, for example, in the scam centres that have taken root in Southeast Asia. A recent UNODC threat assessment estimates that organized criminal networks engaged in cyber-enabled scams across the wider region generated between 80 and over 110 billion US dollars in 2025 alone, in some cases equivalent to the GDP of entire nations. And over 80 nationalities have been found to be trapped in these operations, showing that we must not mistake this for a regional problem. It is a truly global phenomenon. Victims are being targeted in every part of the world, while criminal operations and their supporting infrastructure stretch across Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and beyond. And technology is the operating system connecting it all. It enables criminals to scale up their operations, automate deception, target millions of people, move money quickly, and conceal their activities. As artificial intelligence and other technologies become more refined, criminal networks will only find new and more innovative ways to conduct fraud. To keep up with this evolving landscape, our responses must become equally innovative and connected. That is why the Global Fraud Summit held in Vienna in March was so important. It brought different actors from different fields together, including some 140 companies under a roof. It produced a strong call to action, which received over 140 endorsements. along with a global public-private partnership framework as a basis for building a more coordinated cross-sectoral response. I encourage those who have not yet done so to endorse these documents because the wider support for them means a stronger signal that we can send about the need for action. Above all, it demonstrated a remarkable degree of convergence among member state priorities. Despite differences in legal systems, threat environments, and national capacities, five priorities in particular stood out. First, we need effective national anti-fraud architectures that bring together the institutions and capabilities needed to prevent, to detect, to investigate, and to prosecute organized fraud. Second, we need stronger cross-border cooperation. because the victim, the criminal network, the technology infrastructure, and the financial flow may all be residing in different countries. Third, we need meaningful public-private partnerships. The private sector is not simply another stakeholder in this conversation. In many cases, it holds the critical piece of information, tool, or capability that is needed to take down fraud operations. Fourth, we need to make better use of technology and data to detect patterns, identify networks and act before fraud spreads further. And fifth, we must not lose sight of the victims and the survivors of these crimes. Someone who's lost their savings, whose identity was stolen, or who was deceived and forced to become part of the criminal enterprise itself, must be treated as a victim, not a perpetrator. So these five priorities give us a clear direction on the way forward. It is now up to us to build on this momentum. And I am especially pleased that we are having this conversation here in New York during the high-level week the General Assembly. This is where the global conversation comes together, and this is where we can keep fraud at the top of the international agenda as a serious and evolving form of transnational organized crime. It is also here in New York where the Group of Friends on Technology-Enabled Trafficking in Persons was established earlier this year, once again reinforcing the need to recognize the technology component behind this form of organized crime. It is important that we now connect these efforts. bringing the lessons from New York into our work in Vienna and bringing the experiences from Vienna back to New York, because the convergence we saw at the Global Fraud Summit is not happening in isolation. It reflects a broader shift across the United Nations system, a growing recognition that member states cannot address this threat on their own. Governments must work with the private sector. Tech companies must work with law enforcement. Financial institutions must share relevant information within appropriate legal frameworks. And international organizations must connect these efforts. We will be doing this, for example, at the 15th United Nations Crime Congress next week in Abu Dhabi, where organized fraud will be part of the wider conversation about the changing nature of crime in the digital age. Then in October, we will have the 13th sessions of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which will help bring the conversation from here and Abu Dhabi back to Vienna. Amidst all this, we will continue working to secure support for the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime. As of today, more than 80 States have signed the Convention, while three have ratified this. But implementation is where the Convention will deliver real value. We must move quickly toward that goal. UNODC stands ready. to support member states with technical assistance, capacity building support, legal and policy guidance, and a platform for international cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen, if there's one lesson above all to take from the Global Fraud Summit, it is that the fraud landscape has evolved and become more connected. So we must connect our responses too, across sectors, across borders, across countries and across regions. The summit gave us a clear way forward. Let us now walk that path together for a world where criminals find it harder to commit fraud and victims are better protected. I thank you for your kind attention.

Thank you very much, Ms. Juma, for those inspiring words about the actions we need to take together. I now have the honor of inviting His Excellency General Luong Tam Quang, Minister of Public Security of Vietnam, to deliver his keynote address to the audience. General.

Ms. Monica Zuma, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Director General of United Nations Office at Vienna, heads of delegations, distinguished senior representatives, distinguished delegates, First of all, I would like to thank the UNODC for inviting the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam to co-chair this important event. The presence of representatives from dozens of countries and leading international organizations is a clear testimony to the shared responsibilities, unified political resolve of the international community to decisively address one of the most serious non-traditional security challenges. Excellencies, the world is undergoing profound transformations. Alongside the benefit of expanded digital connectivity and rapid technological advancement, organized national fraud has grown at an alarming pace. Organized fraud networks are becoming increasingly agile, decentralized, and difficult to detect. A single criminal network may operate from one country, use technical infrastructure located in another, move funds to multiple jurisdictions, and inflict losses on victims across several continents. Its methods and modus operandi are growing ever more sophisticated, often outpacing the traditional national approaches to detection and enforcement. Criminal proceeds can be transferred within minutes, while account, domain name servers, telecommunication infrastructure can be changed almost instantaneously. By contrast, information exchange, evidence preservation, mutual legal assistance, and cross-border coordination often remain very time-consuming. Many fraud networks are also linked to trafficking in persons, forced labour, money laundering and other forms of crime, and it can be said that no state, however capable, can protect itself alone against this global threat. In response to the scourge of organized fraud for the future and well-being of humanity, the international community has reached a historic milestone in Hanoi in October 2025, when a record number of states signed the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime at its opening for signature. guided the brightest principle that people must be placed at the center, and the security is the purpose of our efforts, and that the safety and the well-being of people are the highest objective. Vietnam has resolutely implemented measures to prevent and eliminate the conditions that enable cross-border organized fraud groups to emerge and operate both within and beyond its borders. Vietnam regards contributing to regional and global peace and stability as a responsibility, and we have actively participated in developing and strengthening the international legal framework for crime prevention and criminal justice. On the basis of the central role of the United Nations, the Charter of the United Nations, and the fundamental principles of international law, Vietnam actively contributed to the negotiations, drafting and adoption of the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, and we have successfully hosted the opening for signature and has continued to strengthen the cooperation with all the states to dismantle the form of crime. Yet our practical response has not been sufficiently effective and in some respects continue to lag behind the criminals. The time has come for international community to move decisively from commitment to actions, from recognizing the challenges to substantive coordination, and to close the gap between the speed at which criminal operate and the speed at which state operate. And an effective response to organized fraud must be recognized as an urgent imperative for protecting human security, economic security, social order, and the gains of sustainable development. And to help advance this strategic stream, building on the outcome of the Global Fraud Summit, I wish to offer three priorities. First, we must continue to strengthen the international legal framework and uphold the central role of the United Nations in advancing global cooperation to prevent and combat organized fraud. States should use the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime as the normative reference network for cooperation against organized fraud. Priority should be given to promote the signature and ratification of the Hanoi Conventions and its early entry into force, while immediately preparing for the effective implementation by strengthening the domestic legislation, establish effective point of contact, enhancing capability for digital investigations, and also we should support, we should move promptly to operationalize the 27 network and mechanism for urgent preservation of electronic evidence. Second, we must achieve a step change in coordinated action and progressively shift from response to prevention. Time is a decisive matter in combating transnational fraud. An early warning shared promptly can prevent losses for thousands of potential victims. A timely request to preserve evidence can secure critical traces. A rapid freezing order can prevent criminal proceeds from being dissipated. We must therefore strengthen the connection among law enforcement contact points, make use of the 27 network, accelerate information exchange and promote joint investigations. Alongside the cooperation in responding to individual cases, we must jointly strengthen early warning capabilities. Concerning the emerging methods and modus operandi, the relocation of criminal hubs, the misuse of telecommunications, financials, and technological infrastructure, prevention must become a strategic capability supported by sustained investment and organized through a close international corporations, and only through close cooperation and coordinated action among states can we avoid leaving gaps that criminals may exploit. Third, we must build an anti-fraud ecosystem with the meaningful participation of relevant actors, placing people at the center and human security as the paramount objective. In practice, the infrastructure exploited by criminals to perpetrate fraud lies within the ecosystem of banks, financial institutions, telecommunications companies, technology platforms, social media services, and other digital service providers. Cooperation among these actors, drawing on their technological capabilities and capacity to detect risks, must therefore be a standing component of anti-fraud strategies. Distinguished Delegates, Organised fraud operates across borders. The security of each State is therefore increasingly intertwined with that of others, while the well-being of every individual is inseparable from inseparable from the security and the stability of the state. A safe digital environment cannot be built through isolated efforts. What we need is the respect for the Charter of the United Nations and international law, stronger trust and timely information sharing, and sustained coordination in actions. No person should be left to confront alone transnational criminal networks. Vietnam stands ready to serve as an active member, a trusted partner, and a bridge for global cooperation towards a safer and more equitable world in which no one is left behind. And on this occasion, on behalf of the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam, I have the honor to invite Member States international organizations and partners to attend the high-level international conference on combating transnational crimes to be hosted by the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam in 2027. We hope that the conference will provide a forum of sharing initiatives, strengthening trust, developing practical program of corporations. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Minister, for those insightful ideas and really concrete ways, suggestions on the way forward, including the ratification of the Cybercrime Convention that Vietnam has been such a great supporter in. In these opening remarks, we've heard strong commitments and inspiring perspectives. The key question now is how do we translate these commitments into action that the summit proposed? With that in mind, I would invite our panelists to join me. We have a number of panelists and experts, and so this session will be very dynamic with a short three minutes per response per question, and then we'll open up the floor again. I would like to start with Ambassador Martin Adams, the Minister of the Permanent Mission of Nigeria here in New York. Ambassador, scam centers have expanded rapidly across parts of Africa, often relying on trafficked and coerced labor to run their operations. From Nigeria's perspective, what steps are most urgent to dismantle these scam centers, and how can regional and international partners best support that effort?

Thank you very much. Nigeria has been asked to speak on scam centers in Africa, and it is worth being precise about the scope of this topic. It's no longer a one person with a laptop image. that many still associate with what we in Nigeria refer to as advanced fee fraud or 419. What we see now, not only in Nigeria but across the region, are organized syndicates that operate across borders from quasi businesses set up in purpose-built establishments to mimic legitimate operations. while phishing, romance scams, and high-yield investment schemes are perpetrated, often with coerced local labor. Nigeria has confronted this directly. In December 2024, our Economic and Financial Crimes Commission dismantled a crypto investment and romance scam operation run out of a Lagos building set up to resemble a legitimate financial institution. where 792 suspects were arrested, including 188 foreign nationals. During Interpol's Operation Red Card 2.0 this past winter, the Nigerian police took down a syndicate whose ringleader had built a residential property specifically to serve as the operations hub. These are not improvised setups. They are infrastructure and must be policed as such. Through due diligence tools, property registries, and financial monitoring that only organized enterprises would be subject to. We believe that our exertions should be victim centered. In October last year, the Ghanaian police rescued 57 Nigerian youths, some as young as 18, who were trafficked into the compound in Accra and forced to run romance scams. They were not the architects of that operation, but sadly, hapless victims exploited by organized criminal groups. This was possible because of easy cross-border movement and uneven enforcement. This scenario occurs across the subregion and must be confronted in a holistic manner. one that considers the varying culpabilities of the perpetrators. Therefore, any response to scam centers in Africa must appreciate both truths. That in the midst of this crime, victims coexist alongside offenders. Nigeria has also taken part in regional operations designed to respond to this. Including operations Serengeti, Contender, and Red Card. And will keep doing so. Furthermore, we wish to recommend that in addition to financial services, Member States extend the private sector cooperation pillar to include real estate and corporate registration, since these premises are built and leased under paperwork that seems legitimate prior to scrutiny. And secondly, the victim protection pillar should be accorded a standing regional mechanism for identifying and repatriating trafficked nationals while strengthening cross-border law enforcement collaboration. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ambassador. Moving now to the other side of the world, let me continue with Ms. Ng Boon Yan, Director General of the International Organisations Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore. From Singapore's perspective, how can a whole of society approach be built that unites different stakeholders in effectively disrupting scam operations?

Co-sponsor this event, and we'd like to thank the UN ODC for organizing this event and helping us sustain the momentum from the important global fraud summit held in Vienna earlier this year. I'm very happy to be here to share Singapore's experience. We're absolutely right. A whole of ecosystem approach is vital to tackle the scourge. I mean, Singapore is also a victim of scams. We ourselves, from 2021 to 2025, victims in Singapore lost about $3 billion to scams. Last year alone, the losses were over $700 million. And more than eight in 10 of these cases involved victims transferring money themselves after being manipulated through social engineering into believing the scammers. good news is we have seen since a little bit of improvement. So in the first half of this year, reported cases in Singapore fell by about 14% and losses by about 18%. But of course, we are very cautious about declaring progress against a crime that evolves so rapidly. But from our experience, we think three approaches appear to have made a difference, to answer your question. First of all, we've tried to improve the response towards this crime, taking into account its very nature. So in Singapore, we have an anti-scam centre. So right now, it is not just officers from the Singapore Police Force who are there, we also have officers from the banks, from online services providers co-located in the scam center. So by sitting side by side, which sounds simple, but actually they can then take action, such as freezing accounts or intercepting funds much faster, in hours instead of weeks. Second, obviously legislation is very important, and our Online Criminal Harms Act gives us both preventive and responsive tools by strengthening the government's partnership with designated online services. So the legal tools give us the levers to do that. So that allows us to proactively disrupt scams through measures such as requiring verification checks on risky advertisers. We also work with the designated online service providers to tackle specific crime types as well, scam types, such as government official impersonation scams. And lastly, we've also put in place another law called the Protection from Scams Act, which allows the police to temporarily restrict banks from effecting transfers for up to 30 days at a time when they suspect that a scam is happening. So this buys them some time to break the scammers' hold and to protect the victims who may not realise that they themselves are being scammed or who require some time for us to break the hold on those. So let me share two more points about how Singapore sees the way forward. At the international level, obviously international cooperation is vital. The UN Convention against transnational organized crime provides the basis for cooperation, but we've got to work together to make better use of it through faster mutual legal assistance, real time operational exchange, and tracing and returning proceeds before they disperse across borders. And second, enforcement alone is not enough. We need online platforms, telco companies, financial institutions to join us in the prevention efforts alongside sustained public education and support victims. So like I said, we need a whole of society approach that makes it harder for scammers to reach victims, harder for them to move money, and easier for authorities to intervene quickly. So we stand ready to support our global effort against this scourge and stand ready to share our experiences and also to learn from all of you. Thank you.

Thank you very much for that really interesting update on the actions undertaken in Singapore. On that note, I now turn to Ms. Pansuda Jayanama, Director General of the Department of International Organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand. The call to action emphasizes enhanced monitoring and information sharing to address the transnational nature of organized fraud. What practical measure mechanisms can states employ to strengthen cross-border cooperation, including information exchange in a timely, trusted and international standards based matter? To you.

Distinguished delegates, Thailand thanks the UNODC for convening this timely event and for carrying forward the momentum of the Global Fraud Summit. Cooperation and sharing of information and intelligence are an important part of the broader strategy to combat fraud domestically and internationally. This is because organized fraud continues to become more integrated, sophisticated, and technology-driven. For Thailand, industrial-scale scam centers in our neighboring countries have been using our country as a transit point for trafficking persons for forced criminality. Since February 2025, Thailand, in collaboration with foreign embassies and consular officials, international organizations, and civil society organizations, has assisted in repatriating more than 13,700 people from 49 countries rescued from scam centers in our neighboring country, and this operation is still continuing until today. So please allow me to share on the several measures that Thailand has undertaken to address this complex problem. First, we have established a national referral mechanism, or NRM, to provide appropriate protection and assistance to victims in accordance with the trauma-informed and victim-centered approaches, as well as the principle of non-punishment through screening, victim identification, and protection. Second, the Royal Thai Police has established the Anti-Cyber Scam Center, or ACSC, to serve as a global focal point for consolidating intelligence on the locations of scam compounds in Southeast Asia through the use of established Interpol coordinated channels. The Royal Thai Police has also launched the Scam and Human Trafficking Information Exchange and Link Database to serve as a platform for partner countries to share real-time actionable data on scam center locations, financial routes, and victims. We are pleased that more than 15 countries and international organizations, including those participating in this event, have expressed interest in this platform. And third, awareness raising and capacity building activities can support cross-border cooperation and information sharing. Just today, the Royal Thai Embassy in Vientiane and the Institute for Legal Support and Technical Assistance organized a conference on anti-money laundering and scam centers for the Thai and the Lao government and law enforcement agencies, civil society, and the private sector to share information and best practices on countering financial strategies, scam networks, and cryptocurrency. And lastly, as a member of the steering group of the Bali Process, Thailand has actively participated in information sharing workshops to promote regional response to transnational crimes. Excellencies, the call to action of the Global Fraud Summit identified information sharing and international collaboration as key areas of focus on combating online scams. So Thailand reaffirms our commitment to continue working with the international community to advance the global fight against online scams. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Jaimena. It's really interesting to hear how much has been done to ensure that this information can be shared. effectively. I would now like to turn to Mr. David Bedard, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs from the Department of State, the U.S. Cyber-enabled fraud continues to evolve at a pace that outstrips the ability of many national legal systems to respond, with criminals exploiting the gaps between jurisdictions in order to evade justice. David, what do you consider to be the most critical path forward, and how might that be realized in practice? Over to you.

Thank you, Candace, and thank you to the UNODC, Nigeria, Thailand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom for putting this together. When I spoke with INTERPOL President Philippe in Vienna in March, the discussion was very simple, right? His officers were ready to police, but they needed us to deliver the political will. So I think that that's the right way for us to think about what we're able to accomplish in this room here today, as we did during the Global Fraud Summit back in Vienna. So where do things stand? Americans were scammed more in 2025 than in 2024. We estimate Southeast Asia-based scams alone cost Americans at least $18.2 billion in 2025. The United States has pushed back. In the last 10 months, U.S. agencies restrained $938 million in cryptocurrency from Southeast Asia, seized 503 fraudulent websites, disrupted millions of criminal accounts, and warned roughly 9,000 Americans in real time while they were being defrauded. But the number that actually matters is whether fewer Americans are falling victim to these scams. And right now, they're not. We're doing more, and we're not getting ahead of it. As my colleague from Singapore said, we need to be cautious about claiming success. And I certainly, speaking on behalf of the U.S. government, would say we are not successful. So what do we do next? A few things are working, especially when it comes to international cooperation. The 13 country contact group that many in this room are a part of that this administration stood up is working. The principles document we are negotiating points 13 governments in the same direction against this threat. We're all at UNGA here. I think we can all understand 13 countries all agreeing to something is a challenge, but we're getting there, right? That same alignment delivered the first ever resolution on this issue at the Crime Commission in Vienna in June with Japan and the United Kingdom co-sponsoring along with the United States. that commits governments to prosecute, go after recruitment pipelines, and dismantle the financial networks behind the scams. Passing it was the easy part, right? Now governments have to do the work. So the United States will push every Vienna-based body, because we recognize how useful they are, to make resolution implementation a standing part of its proceedings. You would have thought that that's standard practice, but we're going to make sure it is moving forward. Bilaterally, our work with the Royal Thai Police, I think, has been a huge success. had an opportunity to see the cyber scam center while I was out in Bangkok is very impressive and certainly hats off to our Thai counterparts. Working with them, we pulled data off of thousands of devices leading to arrests and indictments. The scripts that we recovered were written in dozens of languages, targeting people all over the world, which is exactly why we need a global response. The private sector piece is coming together too. In May, the FBI convened a disruption week in Bangkok. More than 10 countries were in the room with Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Coinbase. Over 100,000 fraudulent accounts were taken down, and there were dozens of arrests. And all of this is backed by clear direction from the top for me. President Trump's Executive Order 14390 tells our agencies to use every tool available. In July, Secretary Rubio rolled out a new visa restriction policy covering cyber criminals, their enablers, and their family members. And today, right now, I am announcing our first action under that policy. These are restrictions on 32 individuals involved in cybercrime against Americans, including individuals connected to the Prince Group TCO. This builds on Treasury's 2025 sanctions of over 140 Prince Group affiliates and entities, plus an additional 35 that happened in June. In April, with DOJ, FBI, Secret Service, and Treasury, we announced a reward of up to $10 million under the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program for information leading to the recovery of funds from the Taisheng scam centers in Burma. Taisheng victimizes both Americans and the people it holds as forced labor. That reward is a first for I&L against crypto investment fraud, and it complements Treasury's sanctions and supports the DOJ Scam Center Strike Force. So as you can see, we are taking action to protect our citizens in cooperation with many of our foreign colleagues. But passing a resolution or signing a framework does not fix this threat. It gets fixed when governments prioritize it, when they have, they fund their investigators, when they use the tools they already have, sanctions, visa restrictions, extraditions, mutual MLATs, prosecutions, returning stolen money to their victims, when they warn their citizens before that money is gone, not after. So we have driven activity up as an international community, but what we owe our citizens is results. Fewer of them targeted, fewer financial losses, fewer families devastated, and more criminals facing justice. Thank you.

Thank you very much, David, for the reminder that there's still much for us to do on this. Let me now continue with our representative from the UK, Ms. Helen King, Ambassador to ECOSOC here at the Permanent Mission of the UK in New York. Looking ahead, how can the momentum generated by the Global Fraud Summit and its call to action be translated into sustainable action and measurable impact at the national, regional, and international levels? Ambassador.

Colleagues, Executive Director, thank you to UNODC for bringing us together. The Global Fraud Summit did indeed create political momentum. To translate that momentum into measurable impact, we now need to do three things: clear national implementation, faster cross-border disruption, and accountability for results. The urgency is clear, fraud is a growing transnational threat. In the UK, it's now accounting for 47% of all crime and costs, and an estimated 14.4 billion each year. But organised fraud is not just simply a collection of isolated offences, it's cross-border criminal business model. Criminal networks exploit digital platforms, telecommunications, financial systems and differences between jurisdictions. They adapt very quickly and they move their operations to wherever the system is weakest. Our response must therefore address the whole fraud claim, chain, forgive me, preventing fraudulent activity, disrupting the infrastructure that enables it, pursuing criminals and their assets and supporting the victims. The call to action gives us a common framework, and we should now take this forward on three levels. So first, strong national implementation. Each country should translate the call to action into clear domestic priorities, identify the institutions responsible, and establish practical measures of progress. For the UK, that begins with our new fraud strategy published in March. It focuses on three outcomes, disrupting fraud before it reaches its target, safeguarding people and businesses by building resilience, and ensuring effective victim support and justice. We're now investing 250 million pounds in our fraud response over the next three years, and this includes our new online crime centre and brings together public and private sector partners to share data in real time and disrupt fraud more quickly. We will also publish a fraud victims charter next year to improve the consistency of support across the system. Second, faster cooperation across borders and sectors. Governments and law enforcement cannot succeed without the technology, telecommunications and financial companies whose services the criminals exploit. The private sector is not at the margins of this issue and is certainly at the centre of the solution. It's integral to prevention and disruption. Companies need to design out the vulnerabilities within systems, share relevant information quickly, and act with speed to block fraudulent content, communications, and payments. International cooperation must be equally operational. We need faster exchange of actionable information, coordinated disruption across jurisdictions, and stronger action against criminal assets. A concerted effort to prevent the networks from simply relocating to the next weakest point of the system. Third, accountability for results. The call to action must become an implementation framework, not simply remain a statement of intent. We should agree a limited set of shared outcomes and use existing UNODC and Interpol mechanisms to review progress. identifying operational barriers and spreading effective practice. Success should be measured not only through arrests and prosecutions. We should also ask whether fewer fraudulent communications are reaching the public, whether fewer payments are reaching criminal networks, whether more criminal assets are being recovered and whether victims are receiving better and more consistent support. The practical ask following Vienna is therefore clear. Every participating country should identify its national implementation priorities. We should deepen operational cooperation across borders and sectors, and we should agree shared outcomes against which we can assess our collective progress. The test is not whether we continue to express concern about fraud. It is whether we prevent more people from becoming victims and make organized fraud harder, riskier, and less profitable for the criminals behind it. That's why the UK is supporting the Interpol Global Fraud Task Force, helping to turn political commitments into practical action. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ambassador. My next question is for Mr. Christopher de Gal, who is Minister-Counselor at the Permanent Mission of Canada. Both the call to action highlights the need to protect and support victims, while the Global Public-Private Partnership framework emphasizes victim support. What practical measures are needed to ensure that victims remain at the center of national and international anti-fraud strategies?

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, Chair, let me begin by thanking UNODC, INTERPOL, and our member state colleagues for organizing this important event today. Canada was pleased to support and participate in the second Global Fraud Summit in March of this year. Today's discussion underscores the work that remains ahead. Transnational fraud is a global threat that requires coordination, action to disrupt criminal networks, hold offenders accountable, and protect victims. Canada, of course, is not immune from these harms. Canada reported $704 million in fraud losses in 2025 to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, with a further $350 million in losses reported in the first six months of this year alone. The true impact, though, is likely much higher, as an estimated 90 to 95% of cases go unreported to the fraud centre. In 2025, Canada's Minister of Finance announced the development of a whole-of-government national anti-fraud strategy, much like others have developed in their national strategies to protect Canadians from increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes. Public consultations launched in April. are helping to inform Canada's national anti-fraud strategy and focused on strengthening prevention, public awareness, reporting mechanisms, and of course, law enforcement capabilities. Input from these consultations is helping inform the development of this strategy since 2025. Chair, transnational threats require effective international cooperation. We call on member states to make full use of the tools at our disposal, including the UN Convention on transnational organized crime and on corruption. No country, of course, can tackle this challenge alone. Canada, through its anti-crime capacity building program, is investing $35 million globally to counter transnational fraud. Around the world, individuals and communities are being targeted by increasingly sophisticated schemes. Many originate from organized fraud compounds that operate across borders. exploit technology, and inflict severe social and economic harm. These compounds form part of broader criminal ecosystems that target vulnerable populations, exploit corruption, destabilize economies, and facilitate crimes such as human trafficking and money laundering. Importantly, fraud victims are often not the only victims of scam centers. Survivors of forced criminality in these centers endure severe exploitation, violence, and lasting psychological harm, even after they escape. This is a reality we're only beginning to understand, and available data indicates that these survivors are more often likely to accept criminal charges rather than report their traffickers. Canada calls on member states to apply the non-punishment principle and adopt victim and survivor-centered approaches that protect and empower those affected by trafficking and forced criminality. Chair, meaningful action requires sustained attention. Canada looks forward to continuing with member states, UNODC, INTERPOL, and other stakeholders to advance the outcomes of the Global Fraud Summit and strengthen our collective responses to transnational fraud. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We've now heard from a variety of different countries about the actions that have been taken. And I think many of them have also highlighted that countries can't fight this alone, which is why I would now honor to be able to ask Mr. Ed Knight, Executive Vice Chairman of NASDAQ, for a market and technology perspective. The Global Public-Private Partnership Framework recognizes that innovation and adaptability, together with information sharing, as essential pillars in anticipating and disrupting evolving fraud schemes. Drawing on your experience in financial crime detection technology and anti financial crime analytics, how can advanced detection tools be more effectively integrated into public private partnership frameworks to strengthen prevention and enable earlier, more coordinated action against organized fraud? Mr. Knight.

Thank you, Chair. Distinguished representatives, it's an honor to be here today. Of course, NASDAQ is very active in the financial markets. We're known for running stock exchanges, but we have a large group of people at NASDAQ who focus on technology and the integrity of the market. And frankly, one of the fastest growing parts of our company is in the area of anti-financial crime. But I'm not here today to make my business grow. I'm here today to see if we can make the problem smaller because we care very passionately about this issue. We have many employees who've been working with a company called Verafin for years, which started in Canada. And these people care deeply about financial crime, human trafficking, drug trafficking, fraud, all of the harms that can come through the misuse of our financial system and developing technology to fight it. And I'm happy to report also our customers in this area, we serve 2,800 financial institutions, they care deeply about this. They do not, most of them do not view this as a burden to enforce the law in this area. but they find it complex and challenging and sometimes legally questionable. So I think the honest place to start talking about this and why our business has been growing despite our desire to contain this problem, we did a study, a global study of financial crime in 2026 and found that illicit funds flowing through the financial system had grown to an estimated $4.4 trillion, up by more than a trillion in just two years, growing at roughly 19% annually, far outpacing GDP, global GDP. Fraud losses alone, the losses represent a half a trillion dollars a year. driven by a dramatic increase in the use of AI by the bad guys. So the threat is moving faster and it's more sophisticated. Criminals are using AI to run scams and deep fakes at industrial volume. The traditional siloed detection systems most institutions still rely on were not built for that world. They generate high volumes of false positives while sophisticated fraud slips through. False positive alerts consume a significant portion of the anti-financial crime team's time, causing real time and talent to be wasted on noise instead of addressing the real risk. The opportunity, and where I think the public-private partnerships come in, is to move detection from the institution level to the network level, the cross-border network level. When machine learning analytics are trained on consortium data, something we're able to use in the United States because of the Patriot Act, Patriot Act allows financial institutions working with the US government, the State Department, the Treasury Department to consolidate data. they detect fraud patterns that are simply invisible to any single bank. Uh, that's how you find the mule networks that span institutions and the fraud typologies that move across channels, the illicit funds that cross borders in seconds. You're not catching one bad transaction. This is how you disrupt the network behind it, the sharing of data. This only works if we have the right frameworks in place to enable it because it raises legal questions, privacy, other questions which have high importance in the legal policy structures of countries all over the world. Right now, the desire to collaborate is there, but the biggest barrier to bank-to-bank information sharing isn't technology. It's the lack of clear regulatory guidance and safe harbors. The tools exist, but what's missing is the permission structure. So my answer is this. Advanced detection tools deliver their full value only when an anti-fraud framework does three things. It must to be enabled to preserve privacy at the network level while allowing intelligence sharing of anonymized signals, not raw customer data. So patterns of coordinated criminal activity emerge without exposing PII. Our technology takes all these different languages that the financial institutions put their data in and consolidate it in a single language, remove the personal identifying information, and then create this tool that the smallest institution at the American Airlines Community Bank in Dallas can use or the largest global banks. And you have all these institutions working together while protecting privacy. Second, one must extend beyond the point of the transaction. As I mentioned before, fraud and scams originate on dating apps, social media, messaging platforms, and the dark web outside the financial system. Banks, telecoms, and digital platforms need to be able to share verified scam indicators in real time so fraudulent ads get removed, scam numbers get blocked and malicious sites get taken down before the victims are engaged. So you need to engage a broader community than just the financial institutions. Third, regulators need to act as active partners, providing the clarity and the safe harbors that allow the private sector to share intelligence without fear. When you combine advanced AI with collective intelligence and shared accountability, you don't just detect fraud faster, you disrupt the network. And that should be your goal, I respectfully submit. That's the promise of an entire ecosystem working together to keep our communities safe from harm. Thank you for inviting us.

Thank you very much, Mr. Knight. It was really interesting. Keeping on with this, to hear more about the private sector perspective, I'm pleased to call on Mr. Scott Swantner, sorry, now, who is the global director of law enforcement outreach at Meta. The global public-private partnership framework asks actors with different capabilities, cultures, and methods to bring complementary strengths to bear on the same problem. From Meta's perspective, what strategic or procedural approaches have proven most effective in aligning such diverse stakeholders and what remains the greatest obstacles to that alignment we want to see?

Well, first, thanks very much to UNODC for the invite. Meta is proud supporters of the private public framework, the supporting countries, my private industry compatriots. I do want to answer this practically because I think the honest answer is that alignment is about a few procedures, procedural choices that either get made early or they don't get made at all. The first thing that has worked is being specific about what each of us actually see in the fraud attack chain. For us, building infrastructure and exploitation is a big part of our site picture. Meta's counter scam strategy is organized around four pillars. Our defense is multilayered and iterative because we need to be adaptive to an adversarial threat. Our work is focused on what part of the operation we can see, partnering with others to find opportunities to disrupt elsewhere, particularly upstream, because we know that further interventions upstream are going to have the largest effect on harm prevention. The first is building platform defenses. So prevention and detection on our platforms is key. Finding and removing scam content and accounts behind it is quite important. In the first half of 2026, we removed 65 million scam ads globally across Facebook and Instagram for violating our policies. 94% of these were removed before they were seen by anyone. The second is empowering the people on our platforms through tools and information. This is quite important. They keep themselves safe on the platform and across the internet. We've built warnings that appear at the moment of risk, alerts on messengers when conversations from a new contact matches known scam patterns, warnings on suspicious friends requests, and device linking on WhatsApp. The third is public awareness and education. In partnership with governments and consumer groups and civil society, the recognition that an informed public is a form of defense no company can build alone. And the third is disruption, often in partnership with law enforcement industry. Deputy Assistant Secretary Bedard mentioned this. And since last year, across these efforts, which I'll talk about in a little bit more detail, we've taken down over 16 million accounts associated with criminal scam centers across Facebook and Instagram. And in our March operation with the Royal Thai Police and the Anti-Cyber Scam Center, the FBI and Department of Justice accounted for 150,000 accounts and 21 arrests. The disruptions weeks in June that the Deputy Assistant Secretary talked about that actually happened in Washington, D.C. and a follow-on one in Bangkok accounted for 1.4 million accounts taken down, pages and groups, and 63 arrests. This type of public-private cooperation is critical, and it's why we back the UN public-private partnerships framework. Another thing that has worked is deciding the mechanism early and naming who owns it. The partnerships that have delivered are the ones that we agreed on at the outset, what would be shared and in what form and in which channel, and who is accountable on all the sides. The ones that stall are the ones where everyone agrees that cooperation matters, but no one actually agrees to own the pipe. So doing the work of assigning the ownership at the onset is quite critical. And practically starting from a real case rather than a framework creates movement across public private partnerships. This was the case with our joint disruption weeks in Thailand and the United States and will be in the future when we continue to do them. As for the greatest obstacle, to put it plainly, and I want to be careful to put it structurally and rather not at anyone's door, the hardest problem is not alignment between the institutions in this room. I think we've proven that everyone wants to affect this change. It's taking down the accounts that at a generally high volume like we do and understanding that they come back, these are extraordinarily well-resourced bad actors. And they're able to absorb the enforcement as a cost of doing business and sometimes much faster than even a company like Meta is able to enforce. That's the reason that this framework is super important because it's not just the one problem. In some places, the will to act is clearly there and the means are not. The capacity, the resources, the specialist investigative skills, and often a real shortage of legitimate opportunities for technically capable young people. In other places, barriers are different. The progress depends less on capability rather than priority that the issues are given. These two situations call for very different kinds of help. One is fundamentally a question of support and capacity building. The other is fundamentally a question of sustained engagement and shared expectations. Where we flatten them into a single ask, we've tended to serve neither very well. So the question I'd leave for this room is not whether we can align. Again, I think we've all decided that we can and have answered that we will. It is how do we get the right kind of help to each partner. Practical capacity where constraint is the means and continued collective engagement where constraint is the priority. Every partner in the problem is someone that we definitely want to work with. Thank you again for having Meta here and we look forward to having a further discussion.

Thank you very much. It's an interesting collection of different perspectives and ideas on the way forward. And let me now turn to Mr. Eduardo Vergara, Chief of the Division for Citizen Security of the Inter-American Development Bank Group. As the only multilateral development bank with a dedicated citizen security division, what unique convening and technical role can the IDB and other IFIs play in supporting countries to counter organized fraud, illicit markets, and money laundering? What do you think are the most urgent gaps that international collaboration can help to address? Eduardo.

Thank you. Well, thank you, UNODC. We're actually, tomorrow, UNODC is going to become an official member of the Alliance for Security, Justice and Development, so we're really excited and thank you. Thank you for that. Even though we've been working already in different countries, but the Inter-American Development Bank, as it was said, is the first multilateral bank with a citizen security division, so a specialized institutionalized division within the Bank. And unfortunately, the reasons are really unfortunate. It's that Latin America and the Caribbean remains as the most violent region when we look at homicide rates. Even though some improvements have been made in different countries, it remains not only the first priority for our citizens, but also a development issue. For us, it is really important to stress that we don't see any development happening without security, but there's also no security without development. We at the bank have, this division was created two years ago and we've grown seven times in the last two years in terms of operations and that's a big a big growth and a big jump. But at the same time, we created the Alliance for Security, Justice, and Development that today brings 23 countries and 15 institutions, and actually UNODC is going to be number 15. And the work we do, it's around different pillars. And as you can imagine, we work on vulnerable populations. We're developing a strong line of work with preventing child recruitment, the participation of kids and adolescents. We also work to make security and justice institutions stronger. But we also have a pillar that has to do with illicit markets. And here's where fraud plays a very important role. The role is very crucial because, as you're well aware, crime cost 3.4 points of GDP to Latin America and the Caribbean. Almost two points of GDP, it's picked up by the private sector. So it's not only a public challenge, it's not only public investment and public cost, but also the private sector is picking a big tab. And that has to do with everything that has with technology, with the amount of money you need to spend in order to protect yourself, to prevent, but also to go after criminals. So this is important because fraud, among other models, has given crime a business model, a way to operate. And As we are seeing some decreases on violent crime and even homicides in quite a few countries, we're seeing that other types of crimes are going up. And those types of crimes have mainly a lot to do with the use of technology, with fraud, with extortion, and other crimes that they might not be that much violent, but that they are empowering criminal organizations at the bottom. The other element that is extremely relevant to recognize when we talk about fraud is that there is a large and very diverse scale of victims. Victims are one above the other. So we're not talking about criminal structures that pretty much operate preying on victims, but roles within fraud organizations are victims themselves. And that is extremely relevant because in a way, it's a model that is destroying that border between what's legal and what's illegal. And that border in some aspects seems to be really clear and strong, but when it comes to fraud, is not. So I want to close up by saying that our work, our partners, our countries, but we also partner and work with the private sector. We see this as a common challenge. We are extremely proud of the work we do, but unfortunately, as long as the situation doesn't show the improvements that we deserve, which is that people that can live in peace, we're going to continue our work. And that's our commitment. And that's why we're extremely happy for being part of this and being invited and the doors are open to different institutions and countries, even beyond Latin America and the Caribbean, to join our effort within the framework of the Alliance for Security, Justice and Development. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Eduardo. We have one last perspective to hear, which I think is very important in terms of the private sector again. Mr. Ravi Arora is with us. He's head of the Multilateral and International Affairs from MasterCard. From MasterCard's perspective, what tools or technologies have proven most effective in stopping fraudulent payments in real time? And where do you see the biggest opportunity for further innovation?

Well, good afternoon and thank you very much again, Your Excellencies and distinguished delegates. Mastercard is honored to be part of this conversation. You know, as a payments technology company that's operating in about over 210 countries, connecting hundreds and millions of merchants, consumers, financial institutions globally, We are powering secure value exchange between people, businesses and communities. And I think that the question that you raised, I think one important context today is that the nature of the threat when we're talking about payments and real-time payments is fraudulent payments is that the nature of the threat has changed. kind of isolated scams targeting individuals. It is pretty much an enterprise oriented. The mode of operation that goes on because it has it is globally connected criminals who are powered by sophisticated networks. They use AI, they use automation, they use data analytics, you know, social engineering, all of that to move money across borders and commit those scams. So And they target multiple sectors simultaneously. It's not just down to one individual. So it is a tremendous global cost. It's a global cost to citizens, to businesses, to communities, and governments in business in billions of losses every year. And it undermines trust. Trust, something that we've all talked about. So we have to identify and disrupt and dismantle these criminal ecosystems. And technology, yes, we are leveraging the latest technology. But I think what is also important, something else that was mentioned, is about collective intelligence to change the outcome. So yes, we leverage AI, advanced analytics, real-time decisioning. They are allowing the institutions to move from a reactive to a very predictive risk management. give you an example at MasterCard we applied like Gen. AI and Global telemetry to evaluate up to 1 trillion data points in real time scoring transaction risk in 50 milliseconds or less than that right so that's the power of the technology but but what we have learned is that fraud cannot be only viewed from the length of payment uh it's a manifestation of organized crime because these behind these phishing campaigns, account compromise, social engineering, all the illicit financial flows, they operate across sectors, across jurisdictions, and they leverage, so if the threat is interconnected, our response must be interconnected too. And I think that is where, when we talk about connected intelligence, is where, when all the different institutions and sectors can come together, we will have a greater advantage by seeing the different fraud patterns that are out there and the modus operandi that the fraudsters are using. So our opportunity as we go forward is in building a global trusted infrastructure that is powered by predictive intelligence. Because the future of fraud prevention is not simply better fraud detection, it is the creation of this global trust infrastructure where intelligence can be a shared responsibility, it can be analyzed collectively and actioned in real time. Because when we can achieve that, we'll make it harder for the fraudsters to scale, it'll be harder for the fraudsters to kind of hide and conceal and to profit from their illicit activity. And I think that will then continue to maintain the trust that we are all talking about. So we at Mastercard, very committed And we look, believe strongly in the power of public-private partnerships, and we look forward to continuing our work as a strong partner to the global community to combat fraud. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We've heard such a fascinating overview of different perspectives and the different actions that are being taken. I wish I could keep you here all afternoon, but I know we need to wrap up this event. So I think today's discussion has highlighted a clear message that addressing organized fraud requires this comprehensive and coordinated response at the global level. It is not something that any one country or any one actor can solve. Now, I wanted to pass over to our partner in the Global Fraud Summit, Mr. Dominique Barrera, the acting special representative of Interpol to the United Nations for the final closing remarks. Dominique.

Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear colleagues, allow me to express my sincere appreciation to the executive director of UNODC, Ms. Monica Juma, His Excellency General Luong, the Minister of Public Security of Vietnam, and all distinguished speakers, authorities, and participants for their valuable contributions this important event. The UNODC-INTERPOL Group Fraud Summit has provided an important platform for Member States and partners to strengthen our collective response to one of the most rapidly evolving forms of transnational organized crime. Our aim was to create a lasting impact, a better understanding of how fraud networks operate, stronger cooperation and information sharing among law enforcement and the financial intelligence units, and a shared commitment to tackling organized fraud. The call to action was adopted with an objective to understand the modus operandi of this global threat in order to adopt strategies to prevent and fight it. Financial fraud is now among the top Five global crime threats identified by Interpol and increasingly intersects with the human trafficking, organized crime, money laundering, and cyber-enabled crime. Between 2024 and 2025, Interpol notices and diffusions related to fraud increased by 55%, while emerging technologies, including AI, are further transforming the criminal landscape. Through its 196 member countries, Interpol provides a unique platform for secure and timely information exchange and coordinated international action. Now, let me highlight three key initiatives launched by Interpol during the Global Fraud Summit. First, Interpol launched the second edition of the Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment, mapping how the landscape has evolved with a particular focus on the growing role of AI. Second, we announced the upcoming launch of the Operation Shadow Storm Task Force in September 2026, a dedicated task force supported by UK, already joined by 22 member countries and Europol. It is designed to locate and dismantle scam compounds, identify and arrest syndicate members, disrupt illicit financial flows, and dismantle the cybercriminal ecosystem. Third, we also presented new guidelines for the establishment of national anti-scum centers, designed to support member countries in establishing and operationalizing national centers tailored to their own needs and institutional frameworks. INTERPOL also awarded to Member States the Silver Notice, launched in 2025, supporting the tracing and locating of criminal assets, and iGrip, which facilitates the rapid interception of illicit financial flows across borders. Excellencies, INTERPOL continues to provide direct operational support on the ground, such as the operational Jacar 4th, conducted from November 2025 to June 2026, bringing together 22 countries across six continents to target the financial networks and led to dozens of arrests, the seizure of millions of dollars in illicit assets, and the disruption of laundering networks spanning Argentina, South Africa, Italy, and Romania. Second, the Operation First Light, funded by the Ministry of Public Security of China, with 97 countries globally, to combat social engineering scams and associated money laundering activities. It led to the arrest of more than 5,800 individuals and the interception of illicit assets worth $293 million between January and April 2026. And finally, the sixth edition of Operation Hayati, conducted annually and funded by the Korean National Police Academy, brought together 70 participating countries in 2025. We covered close to $440 million in cash and assets and blocked several accounts of multiple forms of cyber-enabled financial fraud. Excellencies, As we conclude this event officially, let us transform the commitment made here into sustained actions, strengthening our institutions, sharing information more effectively, disrupting illicit financial fraud, protecting victims and bringing those responsible for these crimes to justice. INTERPOL remains fully committed to working with the UNODC, Member States and all relevant partners to advance this shared objective. I thank you.

Thank you very much. With that, then I conclude this. Perhaps we can give a round of applause for the amazing and insightful interventions. I know it's an incredibly busy day for you all, so I'm grateful that you took the time to be with us and share such insightful advances. Thank you.

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