House passes bill to equip local law enforcement with scam-fighting tools

A bill that would free up federal funding to help local law enforcement investigate financial scams passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday. 

The Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act (GUARD) attempts to address a common complaint from the victims of online scams like pig butchering — that such cases typically do not rise to the level of a federal investigation but local law enforcement is unequipped to properly investigate them. 

The bipartisan bill introduced by Reps. Zachary Nunn (R-IA), Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) would allow law enforcement to use existing federal grant money to investigate cases involving financial fraud, including by hiring analysts and experts in such crimes. 

They could also use the funds for training on how to help victims of financial fraud and exploitation and how to use blockchain intelligence tools to trace stolen cryptocurrency and identify perpetrators. The grant money could be used to purchase software to conduct financial investigations and to designate a point of contact for financial institutions to share information with law enforcement agencies. 

The funding would be drawn from five existing Department of Justice grant programs, including the Information Sharing Training and Technical Assistance Program.

The legislation comes as cryptocurrency-related losses for Americans reached a record $11.4 billion in 2025, with investment fraud making up $8.6 billion. The language of the bill specifically highlights the vulnerability of seniors to such scams, which are often carried out from overseas by transnational criminal groups.  

Clark Flynt-Barr, government affairs director for financial security, at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), praised the legislation in a social media video last week. 

“One of the things that we heard through AARP’s Fraud Watch Network over and over from scam victims was that when they reported scams to their local police, local police didn’t have the right tools… to actually investigate those crimes,” she said. “This will help to ensure that state and local law enforcement, who really are on the front of lines of fighting scams, have the right tools to do so.” 

Senators Katie Britt (R-AL) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced a companion bill in the upper chamber in July 2025, emphasizing the need for local law enforcement to have access to blockchain tracing technology. It was added to the Senate’s legislative calendar in February. 

On Tuesday evening, the House also passed a bill that would eliminate the so-called “scam tax” requiring Americans to pay taxes on funds that were stolen from them. The bill would apply retroactively for victims scammed between 2021 and 2025.