A new type of scam, called “pig butchering” is gaining momentum. Pig butchering is a unique scam which uses a romance scam script, but with an investment spin on it, where victims are groomed to invest large sums of money, often on fake crypto apps. Behind the scenes of these scams are scam centers run by cryptocurrency scammers, who coerce human trafficking victims into executing the online scam en masse, sometimes defrauding the unsuspecting victims of their life savings.

How do they work?

Often, these scams start by texting the victim via SMS, or frequently on WhatsApp, either pretending to be a wrong number or an acquaintance from the past, immediately striking up a friendly conversation with a victim. Communication is very frequent (several times a day) and soon turns to investment talk. Most people now know to avoid requests for money, so scammers are getting smarter and using persuasion rather than direct requests. Through discussions about investments and profits, the victim is slowly sucked into what looks like an innocent conversation but is actually in a grooming stage, in which they are prepared to engage in an investment. This stage can last days or even weeks. Scammer also take cues from the victim, assessing what type of relationship are they after; companionship, relationship, or business deal, adjusting and adapting the conversation accordingly. The potential victim is then heavily coached through screenshots about how to download trading apps, transfer funds, and buy or transfer funds into cryptocurrency. They are encouraged to invest more and more as time goes on, even getting loans and taking money out of their retirement plan to continue investing. The losses can be devastating.

How the typical pig butchering scam correspondence starts.

This is how the typical correspondence starts.

Things to watch for

  1. Random text or email from someone you don’t know, (Read more...)