DES MOINES, Iowa — Congressman Zach Nunn, last week, introduced a bill that looks to beef up law enforcement resources around financial fraud scams. “Pig butchering” is a term that refers to a scam where bad actors target individuals, specifically older generations, to convince them to partake in an investment opportunity which does not exist. Just last year, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office received 13,000 financial fraud reports resulting in around $42.6 million in financial loss for Iowans. In 2023, authorities around the country seized $300 million in stolen funds stemming from these online scams.

The bill looks to help local and state law enforcement agencies utilize federal grant funding to alleviate some unsolved cases at the state level, as a lot of these crimes do not call for federal intervention. Nunn, a Republican who represents Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, said “I feel very confident, not only with bipartisan support, we are going to be bringing this up this month in committee. That gives us a clear shot to get this moved forward and start protecting seniors immediately, something we need and our law enforcement is desperately asking for.”

The bill is cosponsored by U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer (D) NJ-05 and Scott Fitzgerald (R) WI-05.