Show notes
Debbie Deem joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to discuss how transnational fraud predators are stealing billions from older adults and the intersection between financial crimes and human trafficking.
Debbie Deem
Debbie Deem is a retired FBI victim specialist with over 40 years of experience serving crime victims. She's currently an elder justice victim advocate, specializing in transnational fraud crimes and she serves as co-facilitator for the National Adult Protective Services Association Fraud Forum. She helped start the Victim Assistance Programs at the US Attorney's Office in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, where in the early to mid-1990s she discovered what we now call human trafficking victims and was assisting those victims while also working with financial crime victims. After moving to the FBI in 2003, she began focusing on older victims of lottery, sweepstakes, and romance frauds, gravitating toward the most underserved victims throughout her career.
Key Points
Financial fraud against older adults is now the most common crime happening around the world, with $4.9 billion reported stolen from Americans 60 and older in 2024 alone, representing a 33% increase from the previous year.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that close to $160 billion per year is stolen from all Americans due to fraud crimes, making this a massive underreported crisis.
Language matters when discussing fraud victims - using terms like "defrauded" instead of "scammed" helps maintain victim dignity and reduces blame, similar to how language evolved in human trafficking advocacy.
Common fraud types include romance frauds using stolen military or celebrity images, crypto investment frauds starting with innocent text messages, lottery/sweepstakes frauds, tech support impersonations, and phantom hacking where criminals impersonate bank security.
Victims experience trauma bonds and love bombing similar to human trafficking victims, making it extremely difficult to recognize they're being manipulated even when red flags are present.
The neuroscience behind financial fraud shows that brain chemistry and excitement responses make these relationships feel authentic to victims, requiring neuropsychologists and medical professionals to help explain what's happening.
System failures are widespread - in one case study, a victim lost $380,000 but police didn't respond, banks didn't file required Adult Protective Services reports, and victim services provided no meaningful support.
Crypto ATMs have become "fraud machines" found in gas stations and small stores, though California now limits transactions to $1,000 per day, causing criminals to evolve to using couriers and other methods.
Prevention strategies include not answering unknown phone calls, getting scam warning apps, sharing personal fraud experiences with family members rather than lecturing, and establishing trusted contacts on all financial accounts.
Revictimization occurs through recovery scams where criminals impersonate law enforcement agencies claiming they can help recover stolen funds, and through tax obligations on money withdrawn from retirement accounts even when it was stolen.
The crime creates long-term devastation including bankruptcy, homelessness, suicide ideation, and forcing elderly victims back into the workforce after losing life savings.
This field is where human trafficking advocacy was 20 years ago - needing widespread recognition, proper terminology, victim services, and systemic responses to address the crisis effectively.
Resources
Debbie deem
Neuroscience Behind Financial Scams: A DOJ elder initiative
Internet Crime Complaint Center - ic3.gov
National Elder Fraud Hotline
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University's Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. I'm Dr. Sandy Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issu...