A growing number of Americans are losing thousands of dollars to schemes that take scammers weeks or months to execute.
“Pig slaughter” scams get their name from the idea that scammers use flattery and false association to “fatten” their victims. The strategy has resulted in billions of dollars in stolen funds — mostly in the form of cryptocurrency.
Losses from investment fraud rose 38% to a new record high in 2023, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report. Of the $4.57 billion in reported stolen funds, $3.96 billion was from fraudulent crypto investments.
“I met the scammer through a dating app called Bumble, where he spent about six weeks flirting with me,” said Karina, a pig slaughter victim who asked to be identified only by her first name.
She met the scammer on the dating app Bumble, and previously revealed that the scammer claimed to live a lavish lifestyle and invest heavily in cryptocurrencies. After months of exchanging messages, the scammer convinced her to deposit a total of $152,000 on a website designed to mimic the legitimate cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.
Karina was eventually able to trace her money to a money exchange company in Thailand. She handed the details over to law enforcement but never got her stolen money back.
According to a UN report, pig slaughter scams often use forced labor in Southeast Asia. And while blockchain companies like Chainalysis are tracking millions of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency, the multi-jurisdictional footprint of these cases creates a hurdle for law enforcement to seize the stolen funds.
Watch the video above to learn more about how cryptocurrency scammers are convincing Americans to part with their life savings, and how law enforcement is trying to stop them.