In the wake of incessant Crypto Romance Scams. ‘Pig Butchering’ is a term used to characterize one of the most recurrent crypto romance scams.
Here, a fraudster creates a bogus profile on a social media platform; could be a dating site, forms a relationship, gets them to trust him or her, then goes on to present an 'investment opportunity under the premise that they have their best interests at heart.
Just in case you're wondering where the ‘Pig Butchering’ term comes from. It stems from the fact that these con artists fatten up their pre-selected victims before going ahead with their dubious plans. Might I also suggest the term ‘Slaughter’.
Typically, after the victims have been convinced to make an initial investment deposit, a bogus platform is designed to notify the victims that their assets are increasing.
I bet you already know where the story is going. This supposed growth convinced them to invest more. It's so easy for the victims to trust the scammers with additional money seeing that they already trusted them.
The scammers' next step after establishing a connection with the potential victim they intend to butcher, is to invite time to sign up to a reputable website.
Citing an example in the case of Nicole Hutchinson -- a woman from Tennessee who was a victim.
She had met the one who swindled her, on the dating app- Hinge. He identified as 'Hao'. He had taken the time to build a relationship with her before proposing the fraudulent investment scheme. She was invited to join the Crypto.com website. , a trustworthy and well-known cryptocurrency trading site.
Apparently, Hao had told her to transfer the funds in the account to a new trading platform, one he used personally. This followed after Hutchinson funded her newly created account on Crypto.com. Only, the new trading platform happened to be a forgery. She'd merely been sending money directly to Hao's personal wallet address.
Nonetheless, after she had deposited her cryptocurrency in the phony trading platform, she kept getting notifications that her assets were fast increasing. As a result, she proceeded to invest more and more into her account and even went on to persuade her widowed father to invest in the bogus platform.
According to her, she only started investing in little sums and steadily raised her investment as her account drew profit.
Based on the facts Hutchinson provided her father with, both she and her father ultimately invested $390,000 USD in the sham platform.
Now, upon the growth of their joined investment to $1.2 million dollars, she sought to withdraw from the account only to be informed that she would have to pay a 'tax bill' of about $380,000 to gain access.
Only then did she decide to seek assistance. Upon investigation, it was discovered that she and her father had been bamboozled. They had been making transfers to a scam account the whole time.
Hutchinson's unfortunate experience was investigated by CipherTrace- A Blockchain forensics company. Rich Sanders of CipherTrace discovered a number of scam dating app accounts that could be traced back to the scammer's blockchain addresses. Upon thorough investigation, it was determined that they had stolen up to $20 million via their scams.
Might I also add, that Hutchinson's story was discovered by CBS, and they, in turn, contacted Rich Sanders of CipherTrace
Throughout different parts of the globe, especially in the United States, there have been several reports of scams of this nature.
Citing an example in yet another case. Cindy Tsai, a woman from Boston whose scammer went by the name 'Jimmy'. Now, Jimmy didn't have to contact Cindy using a dating app; instead, he approached her on WhatsApp.
According to Cindy, she was going through such a difficult period in her life, and he happened to be a source of comfort to her, plus he was attentive and attractive.
Just like Hao did to Hutchinson, Jimmy built a relationship with Cindy to the point where she trusted him enough to believe in his investment plans. Ultimately, Tsai ended up putting in up to $2.5 million in yet another phony platform Jimmy proposed.
Despite measures that have been put in place, it does not seem that we have a complete solution to this dilemma. Scammers continue to create fake copies of reputable cryptocurrency trading platforms with very similar URLs to the originals that you can almost not tell the difference.
In fact, these websites turn up ranking high in google search results such that it is almost impossible for a newbie to cryptocurrency to discern the difference, thus they fall prey.
Scammers have cloned several different trading platforms. One of which is 'Imtoken’. In my upcoming piece, I’ll be going into further detail.
What are your thoughts?
PS: Thanks for reading!