As bad actors continue to evolve their tactics and target consumers worldwide, the need for unified action against scammers has never been more urgent. According to the 2025 Global State of Scams Report, created by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and Feedzai, 70% of adults around the world experienced a scam in the past year, yet only a fraction reported these crimes to authorities. This gap underscores an important truth: no single organization, company, or government can solve this problem alone.
Jorij Abraham understands this reality better than most. As Managing Director of GASA, he leads a global coalition of stakeholders from government, law enforcement, financial institutions, technology companies, and consumer protection organizations—each working together to share knowledge and coordinate action against scammers who operate across borders.
Before joining GASA, Abraham served as Director of Research at both Thuiswinkel.org (the Dutch Ecommerce Association) and Ecommerce Europe, where he developed his digital commerce, consumer trust, and fraud prevention expertise. He also founded ScamAdviser.com, which helps over 7 million consumers a month determine whether websites are legitimate or potential scam sites.
Following the Global Anti-Scam Summit (GASS) America 2025—held at Amazon’s HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia—Abraham reflected on the urgency around scam prevention and the power of collaboration in combating a crisis that affects millions daily. In this interview, Abraham discusses the role of cross-industry collaboration in protecting consumers and what it will take to build a world where people navigate their lives with confidence that they won’t fall victim to scams.
1. What motivated you to establish GASA and why does addressing the $442 billion in global scam losses require a unified response?
At the time, I owned ScamAdviser.com, which checks whether a website is legit or possibly a scam. While ScamAdviser is helping a lot of people every month from getting scammed, it does not solve the problem behind it. Scammers just set up a new website once their current scam site is exposed. To really fight the problem at the core, I set up GASA. The impact on consumers is devastating—not just financially, but emotionally. People lose their life savings, their sense of security, and their trust in the digital world. That’s why we need to do more.
Scammers operate globally and across the entire value chain (setting up a website, getting traffic via social media, contacting people via text message/phone, convincing them to pay via a bank account, etc.). Governments, law enforcement, web providers, telecom operators, and banks need to work together to identify scams faster, catch the bad actors, and disrupt their networks.
2. You’ve just concluded the Global Anti-Scam Summit America 2025. What were the most compelling insights about how scammers operate across borders?
Organized crime has taken over the scam business. It is no longer just a 16-year-old boy setting up an online store and forgetting to deliver a product. Today, we see offices with sometimes thousands of people working in them who are often forced to scam people in other countries. These scam compounds first popped up in Southeast Asia but we now see them expanding across the globe. Online scams have become the most reported type of crime, even though they are still one of the most underreported as well.
3. During the Summit, industry leaders discussed emerging threats. How are both scammers and defenders using artificial intelligence (AI), and what does this evolving landscape mean for protecting consumers?
I am very concerned about the rise of AI being leveraged by scammers. Scammers continue to be innovative and dynamic, changing their approaches as new tech advances emerge. In many cases, we see that they are faster than we are at applying the latest tech. However, cybersecurity and technology companies are also using AI to better identify and protect people from scams. I foresee a continuous battle where AI is being used by scammers to defraud people, while defenders use AI to better identify and protect people from scams. We have a tough fight ahead. Texts created by AI are already near perfect … the fact that they are perfectly written may be the only way to identify them as scam in the future. Same with fake voices. I speak to experts who expect that in the next two years they will likely no longer be able to distinguish fake voices using AI from real ones. We need to adapt and innovate to continue protecting people from scams.
We see a lot of specialization happening. Scammers focus on one niche area and get very, very good at it. For example, this could be anything from developing software to launch scam websites within seconds to social engineering, targeting young males to become money mules, and more. The scam industry is becoming more professional and sophisticated, and they’re doing it quickly. We must become much more organized as a result.
4. Can you share an example from the past year where cross-industry collaboration successfully disrupted a scam operation?
Globally, INTERPOL has led several operations to dismantle scam operations. Nearly all operations now also involve the private sector, with cybersecurity companies and technology companies, joining in the fight. On a national level, the Singapore Anti-Scam Center is a great example where banks, telecom operators, social media, and law enforcement sit in one room and operate together to fight scams as they happen.
5. Amazon recently joined the Global Signal Exchange (GSE) and we’re seeing similar public-private partnerships forming to fight scams, including data sharing between retailers, financial institutions, and law enforcement. What makes these partnerships effective, and how is this collaboration evolving?
We need to move from sharing intelligence to more solutions and actions. The Global Signal Exchange (GSE), which was launched in January 2025 with the help of GASA among others a great example. The GSE now has over 30 parties, including Amazon, sharing more than 1 million real-time signals on scams every day.
At the moment, we see scammers hop from one site to the next, often using the same credit card, phone number, and potentially stolen ID. My hope is that with the GSE and other data sharing initiatives, we not only identify these kinds of activities faster, block them, or take them down, but also make sure their credentials can only be abused once. In the end, the collection of data will also allow us to better recognize patterns, which will lead us to the source of the scam.
6. Only 7% of victims report scams globally. How are Summit participants working together to address this reporting gap?
This is a huge issue. People do not report scams for various reasons. Whether that’s because they don’t want to share that it happened to them, they don’t know where to report it, or they feel reporting won’t make a difference, we need to address these barriers to ensure people keep reporting. Without their reports, the scammer will go free for sure. We also need to change the stigma around scams. Anybody can get scammed: it is not the victim’s fault; it is the scammer who is the criminal. We also need to make reporting easier and follow up with the results.
That is one of the reasons GASA will soon be launching Scam.org, a platform designed to make reporting simpler. We will also share data with the GSE to ensure that as many organizations as possible benefit.
7. What innovations in cross-industry collaboration excite you most and what role do regional GASA chapters play in implementing the insights locally?
We cannot fight scams globally if countries do not participate. The chapters are essential to building a solid base to turn the tide on scams globally. Many of the solutions we are launching globally are applied by chapters nationally. However, many of the ideas which are launched by chapters nationally can be applied to other regions as well. The chapters are clearly a win-win.
Apart from the success of the GSE, I see more and more collaboration happening across borders between law enforcement and the commercial sector. INTERPOL is playing an important role in this to unite all stakeholders to identify scam centers. It is crucial that we start catching more scammers to convey the message that scamming does not go unpunished.
8. This year’s Summit was hosted in Arlington, VA at Amazon’s HQ2. From your perspective, how does having technology companies actively engaged in GASA’s mission strengthen our shared goal of protecting consumers?
Technology companies and retailers are essential stakeholders within GASA. Scammers continuously try to take advantage of the people who trust these companies. The companies’ knowledge to block, identify, and apprehend these scam organizations is essential.
For example, Amazon has hosted the Global Anti-Scam Summit America at their HQ2 for two consecutive years, and the momentum continues to build. The growing participation from leaders across government, law enforcement, and industry reflects the urgency of this challenge and demonstrates what’s possible when we work together. By helping bring experts together and actively contributing their own insights and capabilities, Amazon has helped strengthen our collective ability to combat evolving scam tactics and operations. This kind of sustained commitment helps us move faster together —from sharing intelligence to consumer education to implementing real solutions that protect consumers worldwide. We’re grateful for their continued collaboration in this critical mission.
Protecting Trust, Scaling Impact
As scammers become more sophisticated, protecting consumers requires increased collaboration across industry and borders. Through collaborations with organizations like the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Amazon works alongside others to help protect consumers worldwide from the financial and emotional trauma caused by scams.
The Global Anti-Scam Summit America 2025 demonstrated the power of bringing together public and private sector leaders to share knowledge, coordinate strategies, and take joint action against bad actors. Together with GASA and other industry leaders, we remain committed to ensuring that scammers don’t take advantage of people who trust us
Learn more about Amazon’s comprehensive approach to scam prevention.