A senior official from the State Department told senators Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump raised the issue of Southeast Asian cyber scam compounds with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Michael DeSombre, the assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was asked at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing whether the issue was ever discussed with senior members of the Chinese government. 

Trump “has raised transnational criminal organizations with President Xi,” DeSombre told Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).

The hearing focused on international scam compounds that siphon billions from average Americans each year through romance and finance ruses. In recent years, the thefts have emanated from operations run by Chinese organized crime groups in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. 

State Department officials previously said there is evidence that parts of China’s government are in on the scheme, tacitly supporting or selectively prosecuting the gangs that run the compounds and launder the money stolen from U.S. citizens.  

DeSombre did not say when the conversation took place or what Xi’s response was but told the committee that over the last six months, Chinese crackdowns “have actually been to some degree very successful in decreasing the amount of scam compounds in Cambodia” as well as Myanmar. 

“I think our understanding is much of that has been driven by Chinese desire, as those scam compounds had been targeting Chinese nationals,” DeSombre said. “So I think one of the benefits, shall we say, of the expansive or the expanding nature of the targeting out of the scam compounds is that they've been targeting many more countries, and those countries, including China, are now much more willing to work with us to try to go after these scam compounds.”

The White House did not respond to requests for confirmation that the conversation between Trump and Xi took place. 

China has taken a more robust response to the cyber scams this year, forcing the Cambodian government to extradite several senior leaders of companies involved in the scheme. The Chinese government executed members of multiple crime families that ran scam compounds in Myanmar. 

But U.S. officials previously warned that Chinese law enforcement is only targeting gangs that scam Chinese citizens and is allowing others to continue operating as long as they target Americans. Other experts warned that some Chinese extraditions from Southeast Asia were likely done to stop efforts by the U.S. and others to gain access to cyber scam leaders who may have important information to share. 

DeSombre referenced this in his testimony on Thursday, noting that the U.S. and other countries are “putting diplomatic pressure on these countries not to deport [cyber scam bosses] back to China, but to give us access to those individuals to make sure intelligence is gathered, so that we can actually ensure that we can go after all the scam bosses and make sure they aren't sent back to China and able to continue to operate against American citizens.”

“When they are sent back to China, we don't have great transparency as to what happens to them. Some of them may be incarcerated, and others may not. We don't have that transparency,” he said. 

“It is a topic that we discuss with China and will continue discussing with China. Understand that there's been various efforts at the FBI to work with the Chinese [Ministry of Public Security] as well, and I presume they're talking to them about those topics.”

Industry expansion

DeSombre and another State Department official, David Bedard, noted that more than $12 billion was stolen from Americans last year in cyber scams. That is likely an undercount, they said.

Bedard said that the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs funded FBI deployments to Thailand, where U.S. personnel were embedded with the Royal Thai Police during recent disruptions of scam compounds in Myanmar. 

Those operations allowed U.S. officials to interview people fleeing the scam compounds about the gang leadership, operations and tradecraft. The FBI was also able to examine more than 8,000 phones and 1,500 hard drives — which helped “multiple federal indictments and arrests targeting scam leaders and facilitators,” Bedard said.

DeSombre noted that two weeks ago, the State Department announced new visa restrictions for individuals linked to foreign cybercrime networks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also discussed scam centers with Cambodia’s foreign minister at a conference in July. 

The two also confirmed queries from several senators about the expansion of the cyber scam scheme beyond Southeast Asia. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) questioned whether the law enforcement action in Southeast Asia was forcing gangs to move to the Western Hemisphere and listed off several instances since 2023 where law enforcement uncovered scams in Peru, the Dominican Republic and other countries. 

Bedard said romance scams have long been operated out of Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire while call center scams from India, lottery scams from Jamaica and timeshare scams from across South America have only expanded over the last decade. 

“It's certainly proliferating, and the concern is that the trade craft that these Chinese transnational criminal organizations are using in Southeast Asia is being exported around the globe,” he said. 

“We've had concerns from Sri Lanka as well about scam centers rising there. [We have] a global footprint and we certainly want to address this concern where it's predominantly affecting Americans in Southeast Asia, but also getting ahead of the concerns as it expands globally.”