Pig Butchering -Dating Apps, Crypto, and Organized Crime
What Is ‘Pig Butchering,’ the Crypto Scam That’s Flooding the FBI’s Phone Lines?
A “pig butchering” scam has a few basic elements to it. Each individual piece isn’t so different from a lot of other crypto scams, though they do offer a noxious brew when mixed together.
The broad strokes go something like this:
- The scammer targets a victim on a dating app like Tinder, initiating a romantic relationship that’s exclusively online
- Through online chats, a level of trust is established
- Inevitably, the “lover” encourages their target to invest in cryptocurrency, commonly directing them to a fake website or app that is secretly controlled by the scammer
- After the victim has agreed to invest some money in the phony platform, the lover disappears (along with the money)—never to be seen again
