New GUARD Act Funds Local Police to Fight 'Pig Butchering' and Elder Fraud Using Blockchain Tracing

The new Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act, or the GUARD Act, is essentially a turbocharger for local law enforcement agencies fighting modern financial crime. It takes existing federal grant money and explicitly allows State, local, and Tribal police to use those funds to investigate three major types of fraud: elder financial fraud, general financial fraud, and the increasingly common and devastating crypto-based confidence scam known as “pig butchering.” This legislation is designed to drag anti-fraud enforcement into the digital age by focusing on specialized training and better coordination.

The Scams This Bill Targets

Before diving into the mechanics, let's nail down what the GUARD Act is actually fighting. Elder Financial Fraud is straightforward theft targeting seniors or adults with disabilities. General Financial Fraud covers things like identity theft and credit card misuse. The real game-changer here is the focus on Pig Butchering. This is a particularly nasty, high-tech scam where criminals build long-term, trusting relationships with victims—often through dating apps or social media—and then trick them into investing large sums into fake cryptocurrency platforms before disappearing with the money. The bill defines these complex schemes clearly, recognizing that they require specialized tools to investigate.

Giving Local Cops Digital Tools and Training

If you’re a detective trying to follow money stolen via a crypto scam, your current training and tools might be useless. The GUARD Act changes this by allowing law enforcement agencies receiving specific federal grant funds (like certain DOJ and COPS programs) to spend that money on critical resources. This includes hiring specialized analysts and investigators, paying for training on complex financial investigations, and buying software and technical tools. Crucially, the training must cover how to use blockchain intelligence tools—the digital equivalent of following footprints in the snow—to trace stolen funds on cryptocurrency ledgers. This means a local police department in a rural area, where an elderly resident might have been scammed, can now access the same high-tech resources typically reserved for federal agencies.

Mandatory Reporting: Showing the Work

This isn't just a blank check; the bill includes serious accountability measures. Any agency that uses these federal funds must submit a detailed report within a year. This report can’t just list expenditures; it must include statistics on how the spending actually impacted fraud in their jurisdiction and provide an assessment of how much better they feel they are at stopping fraud now. This focus on data and measurable impact (Section 3(b)) is designed to ensure the money is spent effectively, though relying on self-assessment for the “deterrence assessment” might lead to some subjective reporting.

Federal Agencies Step Up the Oversight

Beyond local reporting, the GUARD Act mandates a massive data collection effort from the top down. The Treasury Department and FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) must team up to produce two major reports for Congress. The first is a plan outlining current and recommended strategies for fighting these specific frauds (Section 4). The second, due within two years, is a comprehensive estimate of the scale of the scam problem in the U.S. (Section 5). This means estimating the total number of scams, the dollar amount consumers lose annually, and the percentage linked to overseas actors or organized crime. For the average person, this means the government will finally have hard data on exactly how bad the scam epidemic is, moving beyond anecdotal evidence to informed policy.

Real-World Impact: The Financial Liaison

One of the biggest practical hurdles in fighting digital fraud is the communication gap between banks and law enforcement. The bill allows agencies to use funds to designate a specific liaison (Section 3(a)) to act as the main point of contact with the financial sector. This is a huge deal. It means that when a bank sees a suspicious transaction, there’s a dedicated person they can call right away, potentially stopping a scammer from draining an account before they vanish. Furthermore, the bill explicitly allows federal law enforcement to share their advanced blockchain tracing tools with local and Tribal law enforcement (Section 7), ensuring that smaller agencies aren't left behind when dealing with sophisticated digital criminals.