On April Fool’s Day, the Arizona Department of Transportation sent out a warning to citizens: don’t get fooled by fake texts claiming you owe past due tolls. That warning was one of several sent over the last few months as a rise in toll road scams has hit Arizona. 

The crazy thing about these warnings? Arizona has no toll roads. That small fact, however, has not stopped scammers or the onslaught of messages threatening Arizonans that failure to pay their outstanding tolls will result in severe penalties. Too many of our citizens have fallen victim.  

Here at the State Capitol, me and my colleagues on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have investigated these scams and discussed solutions. What is clear is that this is a far bigger problem than our state can solve alone. We need the help of Congress. 

While toll road scams have been the focus in Arizona, they are just the tip of a massive fraud and scams iceberg.  

In 2024, the FBI reported that fraud and scams losses had grown 33% to more than $16.5 billion. Arizona’s losses neared $400 million, and seniors were among the hardest hit anywhere in the country, as they lodged the fourth highest number of complaints and had the sixth highest losses. 

What many Arizonans do not realize is that this rise in scams is not driven by a few bad actors. Rather, it is caused by sophisticated criminal enterprises operating from all around the world — from Southeast Asia all the way to parts of Latin America and Africa. These criminal organizations run “scam centers” — essentially fraud factories — where trafficked workers, victims themselves, systematically target Americans through social media, text messages and phone calls.

Romance scams are the primary output from these centers. That is where a scammer will spend time building a personal relationship with a victim online, only to disappear one day after tricking the victim into sending a large sum of money. 

Another type of scam that the FBI recently warned about were government imposter scams. This is where criminals use texts and phone calls, sometimes with AI altered voices that sound like prominent officials, to carry out their deceits.

When crooks are pretending to be the federal government to trick Americans, the real federal government has a duty to act.  

To date, the current approach to combating fraud has been inadequate. The scammers are evolving faster than our existing protections and using every available channel — from cryptocurrency and wire transfers to gift cards and retirement accounts. Some of the proposed solutions from Congress, like trying to deal with crimes on peer-to-peer platforms after the crimes have happened, fall far too short. 

What is needed is a comprehensive approach that matches the sophistication of these criminal networks. Congress can do this in a few ways. 

First, they should increase resources for all levels of law enforcement to find and eliminate scammers. Second, they can create a cross-agency taskforce to serve as a single point of coordination for anti-fraud efforts. This taskforce can also serve as a central reporting database for victims of fraud and scams. 

Lastly, they must think internationally. This includes working with foreign governments to shut down scam centers, as well as adopting solutions that have worked abroad, such as Singapore’s required registration for mass text messages and the United Kingdom’s dedicated fraud verification hotline. 

Too often my office has heard from constituents who have been the victims of scams. Whether it be toll road scams, investment fraud, crypto fraud or one of the many other types of fraud and scams, they have lost real money.

Stopping this requires more than piecemeal solutions. It demands a serious response. That is where Arizona’s leaders, including Senator Ruben Gallego, can and must lead the way. 

Anything less misses the mark.

Consuelo Hernandez is a State Representative from district 21 representing Tucson, Nogales, and Bisbee. She also serves on the SUSD School board and has dedicated her life to fighting for educational equity, and working people.