Dating, crypto, and butchering a pig —meet the newest scam in the market, the Pig Butchering Scam

Pig butchering scams employ social engineering to scam the target into losing thousands of dollars. 

Pig butchering is a specific kind of cryptocurrency scam that uses catfishing to win the trust of the target before persuading them to participate in a financial investment scheme. The phrase Shaz Hu Pan, which literally translates to "pig butchering," is how the scam first appeared in China.

How do pig butchering scams operate?

The fraud begins with a text message sent through a messaging app like WhatsApp or a dating app like Tinder.

Typically, the message sounds as though the intended recipient is someone else, and the sender simply mistyped the recipient's phone number. They continue texting you to establish a connection, even after you tell them they are texting the wrong person. The scam's second phase starts.

The focus right now is on gaining the victim's trust. Scammers will establish an intimate connection that can last for weeks or even months.

Then they begin to blatantly brag about their wealth, including their fast cars, lavish vacations, and even private planes. All thanks to a never-heard-of investment app. Perhaps you should also make a cryptocurrency investment? Even investment advice is something they can offer.

The third stage of the scam, the "fattening up," starts here. The scam artist will suggest a particular trading platform for you and them to test out together.

The scam artists will suggest making small preliminary investments to gain trust. Your investments will start to pay off right away. You might even be encouraged to withdraw some money by the scam artist to make sure the platform is trustworthy. But regrettably, all of these are fake platforms for trading cryptocurrencies.

Once you begin to believe the scam artist, they will persuade you to make increasing amounts of investment. After investing thousands, if you decide to stop trading or change your mind, they'll tell you that you have to pay exorbitant fees to get your money back. After that, the scam artists vanish. You provided them with everything they required. The pig was butchered.

The scam started in China, but it quickly spread to other Southeast Asian nations. These scams are now concentrated in nations like Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia, especially after China's government began to take action against pig butchering scams within its own borders.

The scammers are frequently themselves victims of debt, violence, and sometimes even human trafficking. People who respond to fake job postings end up performing forced labor for a criminal organization.