Named after China poultry farmers’ methods, the scam involves luring targets (called pigs for their naiveté) with romance, then financially-slaughtering them
A cybersecurity firm has recently released details of its two years of research into “pig butchering” scams.
At their core, such scams leverage online dating platforms or social media to pull off a sophisticated blend of emotional manipulation and financial deception. Promises of lucrative investments in cryptocurrencies and spot gold serve as bait, ultimately leading to severe financial losses.
Tenable’s senior research engineer, Satnam Narang, had personally acted as a potential victim of pig butchering scams from the end of 2022 into early 2024 to gain insights into the modus operandi of such bad actors. He noted: “Despite the staggering financial toll inflicted by these scams, the true extent of the losses remains difficult to quantify, hampered by the blurred delineation between romance and investment fraud, the clandestine nature of transactions on attacker-controlled platforms, and the underreporting by victims due to feelings of shame and embarrassment.”
Central to the scam is the utilization of falsified cryptocurrency investments. Victims are persuaded to invest substantial sums of money, only to discover that their funds have vanished into the hands of fraudsters. Narang estimated that losses associated with scams observed in his research had totaled nearly US$13m, although he believes this figure to be a conservative estimate.
The situation in SE Asia
Recent reports across South-east Asia have underscored the growing threat of romance scams. For instance, Indonesian authorities recently detained 88 Chinese nationals linked to a transnational phone and online romance scam syndicate.
Similarly, within the first half of 2023 alone, Singapore had reported losses amounting to S$25.9m due to such scams. In Thailand, these fraudulent activities has also posed a significant concern: romance scams ranked 10th in crime cases, with 1,435 reported instances and total losses surpassing S$17.5m within just a nine-month period.
Advice to potential victims
To empower individuals in identifying and thwarting pig butchering scams, Narang offered the follow advice on recognizing such scams:
- Watch out for random, unsolicited messages on messaging platforms followed by requests to move conversations off dating apps
- Avoid any investment invitations from these chat “friends”, especially when they boast about their great success in cryptocurrency investments and other schemes, or who solicit your funding in purchases (even from legitimate exchanges) for dubious purposes.
The public can also read up this advisory by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for general investment scam awareness.
