Uniting Banks and Law Enforcement to Fight Financial Crime
Capital One’s Jamie Simmons explains why trusted law enforcement partners are key to disrupting global financial crime networks
Fraud and scams are becoming more sophisticated, coordinated, and global. What once looked like isolated incidents are now part of complex criminal networks that operate across digital platforms, industries, and borders.
At Capital One, protecting customers from financial crime goes beyond monitoring transactions. It requires understanding how these networks operate and working closely with law enforcement to detect, prevent, and disrupt them.
We sat down with Jamie Simmons, a former law enforcement official and longtime fraud investigator at Capital One, to discuss how financial crime has evolved, what effective partnership with law enforcement looks like in practice, and why a coordinated, real-time approach is essential to protecting customers.
Q: How have fraud and scams changed over the last few years? What are you seeing today from a law enforcement perspective?
The biggest shift is scale and reach.
Fraud used to be much more local and physical. Someone had to steal a card or intercept mail. Now we live primarily in the digital world, and there are no real boundaries. These crimes can originate anywhere and impact anyone. The tools and tactics are widely available, which allows criminals to operate at a much larger scale.
Because of that, what used to be isolated activity has evolved into organized, global networks. It’s not just opportunistic anymore — it’s coordinated, and it spans across industries and geographies.
Q: When you say Capital One partners with law enforcement, what does that actually look like in practice?
For us, it starts well before there’s ever a case.
The most effective partnerships are built long before there’s a case. We build relationships across federal, state, and local law enforcement so that when something happens, we’re not starting from scratch.
We also spend time training and sharing permissible information, so there’s a common understanding of what financial crime looks like today and how we can work together.
On a day-to-day basis, we’re constantly looking for unusual activity — patterns that don’t look right based on what we’re seeing from customers and across our systems.
When we identify suspicious activity, we can share signals in real time — helping law enforcement act faster with the goal of preventing additional harm. This collaboration allows us to move quickly — not just to respond to fraud, but to help prevent it in the first place, working across the full lifecycle of educating, preventing, and disrupting these activities.
Q: What has to be true for banks and law enforcement to work together successfully — and what challenges still exist today?
It really comes down to relationships, trust, and clarity.
You have to build those relationships before you need them. This is still very much a relationship-driven space. If you’re only reaching out when there’s a problem, you’re already behind.
At the same time, you need clear governance — understanding what can be shared, how it can be shared, and making sure that’s done responsibly and consistently. From an industry perspective, it’s not just about one institution. You need alignment across the ecosystem — financial institutions, law enforcement, and other partners — so everyone knows how to work together effectively.
One of the biggest challenges today is clarity around information sharing — balancing the need for collaboration with regulatory and privacy requirements. If we can get more consistency and clarity in how we approach that, it would enable stronger collaboration while still protecting customers. And given the scale of these crimes, that partnership has to be supported by the right technology and infrastructure to share information in a way that’s secure and effective.
When those pieces come together, you can move faster and have a much bigger impact.
Q: What role do consumers and communities play in helping prevent fraud and scams?
Customers play a critical role in fraud and scam prevention — but many scams go unreported.
One of the biggest challenges we see is underreporting. When scams go unreported, it becomes harder to identify patterns, strengthen protections, and stop future attacks.
Often, people don’t report because they’re unsure if what they experienced qualifies as a scam or whether it’s worth reporting. But every report helps build a clearer picture of how financial crime operates and how they evolve.
We also need to make education and awareness more relevant in the moments that matter most — when people are making decisions. Taking a moment to pause, question, and verify can make a real difference.
Q: Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities in scam prevention?
AI is accelerating both sides – giving criminals new tools, but also giving us more powerful ways to detect and disrupt fraud.
At the same time, those same tools are part of the opportunity. We can use them to detect patterns earlier, understand behavior better, and disrupt these networks more effectively.
What gives me optimism is the level of collaboration we’re seeing. When banks, law enforcement, and other industries across the ecosystem work together, we can make a meaningful impact.
Education alone isn’t enough, and neither is law enforcement on its own. It takes a combination of education, disruption, coordination, and strong partnerships across industries to stay ahead of these threats.
My colleagues and I at Capital One are committed to doing our part to help protect our customers.