By McKenzie Romero | Editor
Just days before Utah unveiled a new operation to fight complex financial crimes, a member of the household of a state lawmaker behind the center was lured to enter credit card information into a fake website.
That moment underscores the growing frequency — and cost — of sophisticated scams that the state’s Financial Crimes Intelligence Center is looking to take on.
In today’s Dispatch we update you on the kickoff for the new strategy to fight financial crime, the changing race in a third-party incumbent’s bid to return to the Utah Legislature, and a downwinder’s message to the United Nations General Assembly.
“I just want you to reach out, I want you to report it, because a $30,000 fraud that takes place in Cache County and a $30,000 fraud taking place in Washington County may actually be connected.” — Utah Attorney General Derek Brown on the new Financial Crimes Intelligence Center’s goals to connect investigations.
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown speaks at a news conference announcing the state’s new Financial Crimes Intelligence Center on Aug. 31, 2026. (Annie Knox/Utah News Dispatch)
By Annie Knox
Utahns lost $108 million to financial crimes last year and almost $60 million so far this year. Once someone’s been scammed, Attorney General Derek Brown noted a bank typically flags the problem, a police department will open a case and a hotline will field a call from the victim seeking help — but they likely won’t talk to each other.
As they pieced together the plan for the Beehive State’s new Financial Crimes Intelligence Center, state officials met with law enforcers in Texas to learn about a state fraud intelligence center there. The Utah team’s goal is to bring in enough information to recognize patterns.
Sen. Emily Buss, a member of the Forward Party of Utah from Eagle Mountain, listens on the Senate floor of the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City. (Courtesy of the Utah Senate)
By Katie McKellar
Democrat MacKenzie Miller has dropped out of the race for Utah Senate District 11, leaving a two-way race between the Utah Legislature’s only currently elected third-party lawmaker and her GOP challenger.
Now incumbent Sen. Emily Buss — a Forward Party candidate who currently holds the party’s highest-ranking elected position in the country — is left to face Republican challenger Brooks Benson in the upcoming Nov. 3 general election. Miller said he bowed out after realizing a three-way race would likely mean the district would fall back under the Legislature’s Republican supermajority control.
Tina Cordova, founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, spoke Aug. 31, 2026, to the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate the International Day against Nuclear Tests. (Screenshot of speech courtesy United Nations)
SOURCE NEW MEXICO
By Patrick Lohmann
Tina Cordova, founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, addressed the United Nations General Assembly in hopes of convincing global leaders to stop nuclear weapons tests like the one that sickened generations of her family in New Mexico.
Cordova spoke on the invitation of UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock, who said she invited Cordova to “raise awareness about the effects of nuclear weapons tests explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”
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