The IRS called your mom last week and told her she owed money or she would be arrested.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier just announced legislation that would put the person behind that call in prison.
He's calling it the Florida Anti-Spam Communications Act – and here is what it does.
What Uthmeier Is Proposing
"If somebody is fraudulently sending text messages to unwanted recipients, it's often just prosecuted as a misdemeanor," Uthmeier said Thursday. "No real punishment, no real jail time."
Uthmeier wants to change that.
The bill would classify impersonating a law enforcement officer, spoofing a phone number, using an AI-generated voice to steal money, or sending a fake warrant by text as communications fraud.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2100638586450121059?s=20
High-volume operations and high-loss cases would become elevated felonies.
"You need to go to jail for four or five years if you're engaging in this kind of sophisticated fraud," Uthmeier said.
The legislation would also make it a felony to own or import a SIM farm or phone farm – devices that can blast thousands of calls and texts from a single location in seconds.
That is the machinery scammers use to reach tens of thousands of seniors before lunch.
The AI Problem Nobody Is Talking About Enough
Statewide prosecutor Taylor Chatting laid out how scammers are now using artificial intelligence to clone the voices of law enforcement officers, financial professionals, friends, and family members.
A voice that sounds exactly like your grandson calling from jail.
A voice that sounds exactly like your daughter saying she was in a car accident.
The FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report tracked AI-assisted fraud as a formal crime category for the first time in its history – 22,364 complaints and over $893 million in losses in a single year.
Americans over 60 reported approximately $7.7 billion in total cybercrime losses in 2025 – a 59 percent jump from the year before.
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Seniors lose an average of $1,298 per phone scam incident – triple what younger adults lose.
The technology is accelerating faster than the laws protecting your family.
Voice cloning fraud alone rose 680 percent in a single year.
A Florida woman at the press conference described how scammers posing as Xfinity employees talked her out of $700.
"They were very professional," she said. "They knew most of her information, so it was like I had no red flags going off in my head that something would be wrong."
She found out the money was gone when her sister's real Xfinity bill arrived.
Florida Is Putting Scammers on Notice
The United Kingdom just criminalized SIM farm possession nationally under its Crime and Policing Act of 2026.
Uthmeier's proposal would put Florida among the first states in the nation to do the same – and would force telecommunications companies off the sidelines.
Under the bill, carriers would have to verify caller ID authenticity, cooperate with traceback investigations, and pull the plug on identified scam operations after receiving written notice.
Consumers who request to stop telemarketing contact would get a response within days, not the weeks the current system allows.
The Attorney General's Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit has already recovered nearly $10 million for scam victims in 2026.
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That number sounds impressive until you realize AI-enabled fraud is projected to hit $40 billion in the United States by 2027.
Uthmeier is also seeking funding for a statewide alert system to warn Florida seniors when coordinated scam operations are active across the state.
If you get a call from someone claiming to be law enforcement and saying there is a warrant out for your arrest – hang up immediately.
Real law enforcement does not demand gift card payments over the phone.
If this legislation passes, the person on the other end of that call is looking at four to five years in prison.
Sources:
- Kennedy Owens, "Uthmeier seeks harsher penalties for phone, text scammers," Florida Phoenix, September 17, 2026.
- Kellie Cowan, "Florida AG proposes tougher penalties to target scam calls and texts," FOX 13 News, September 18, 2026.
- FBI 2025 Internet Crime Report, released April 2026.
- "Crime and Policing Act 2026 Guidance: Offences relating to the possession and supply of SIM farms," UK Government, July 2026.
- Deloitte Center for Financial Services, AI Fraud Loss Projections, 2026.
