Imagine receiving a message from an unfamiliar number: “Hey, is this Anna?”
What begins as a romantic or friendly conversation can quickly evolve into investment advice—usually involving cryptocurrency, DeFi platforms, or fake mining pools.
This is the insidious beginning of a pig butchering scam—a sophisticated blend of romance and investment fraud designed to exploit trust and drain victims’ finances.
Different from other types of crypto scams that rely on technical exploits, phishing links, or fake airdrops, pig butchering scams operate through calculated emotional manipulation.
In this article, we’ve shown how scammers spend weeks or months grooming their targets through what seem like authentic personal relationships.
By understanding how pig butchering scams are structured and who’s behind them, you’ll be better equipped to recognize, avoid, and report them—protecting yourself and helping others stay safe online.
What Is a Pig Butchering Scam?
At its core, a pig butchering scam is a highly orchestrated fraud where scammers pose as love interests or trusted contacts to guide victims into fake crypto platforms.
The pig butchering scams definition includes both psychological manipulation and technical deception—fake dashboards, apps, and even DeFi smart contracts—all designed to simulate real investing while draining funds.
The term “pig butchering” comes from the Chinese phrase Sha Zhu Pan, a metaphor for grooming victims emotionally (“fattening”) before financially exploiting them (“slaughtering”).
Because of the term’s dehumanizing tone, some global organizations, including Interpol, have begun using the alternative term “romance baiting.”
The rise of pig butchering scams can be traced back to the COVID-19 pandemic. When casinos across Southeast Asia shut down due to lockdowns, criminal networks repurposed them into scam compounds.
These facilities, often staffed with trafficked individuals, became the launchpads for global online fraud campaigns—particularly those combining romance and fake crypto investments.
These scams are not limited by geography or demographics. According to FBI Assistant Director James Barnacle, as part of “Operation Level Up,” the agency has identified more than 4,300 victims, many through direct outreach.
Shockingly, 76% had no idea they were being scammed. Most victims were aged 30 to 60—technologically literate individuals simply looking for smart investment opportunities.
This emotional and financial abuse often leaves victims confused, asking, what is pig butchering in dating? or what is pig butchering online?—highlighting the blurred line between love and fraud.
Scammers rely on silence and trust as much as they rely on code. Behind each scam is a trained agent following a playbook designed to break down defenses, build belief, and isolate victims from outside advice.
Who Is Behind Pig Butchering Scams?
Source: Interpol
Unlike opportunistic online fraud, pig butchering scams are highly structured criminal operations—some even resembling corporate enterprises.
Many of these rings are run by organized crime groups based in Africa and Southeast Asia, particularly in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos, which have become a central hotspot for digital scams due to weak oversight, widespread corruption, and almost no cooperation between countries, which allows criminals to act with little risk of punishment, and are fueled by human trafficking and forced labor.
These operations are typically divided into two core components:
Front Office: Victim Manipulation
The “front office” handles direct engagement with targets through:
- Mobile Devices and Messaging Apps: Prepaid phones and shared accounts on WhatsApp, Telegram or Snapchat allow scammers to maintain ongoing conversations across shifts.
- Fake Profiles: Social media and dating accounts often use stolen or AI-generated images and identities.
- VPNs: Internet traffic is routed through private VPNs to mask geographic origin.
- Cryptocurrency Wallets: Used to build trust and simulate legitimacy during onboarding.
- AI-Generated Content: Tools like ChatGPT help scammers produce more fluent, emotionally persuasive messages.
Back Office: Infrastructure and Laundering
The “back office” builds and maintains the technical and financial foundation although its infrastructure depends on the type of scam.
- Hosting and Domains: Scams are deployed on cloud platforms (AWS, Alibaba, Google), often using domain names that imitate crypto brands like USDT, ETH, or BTC.
- DeFi Scam Kits: These are plug-and-play websites built with Web3 and React frameworks, designed to connect to victims’ wallets and mimic real DeFi apps.
- Smart Contracts: Victims unknowingly approve transactions that transfer funds to scammers.
- Crypto Laundering Paths: Funds move through intermediate wallets, fake exchange accounts, and eventually into bank accounts—often linked to shell companies and international jurisdictions like Hong Kong.
Ongoing Adaptation
Modern frauds structures now detect empty wallets, restrict platform access based on device type, and obscure wallet contract addresses using APIs like WalletConnect.
These defenses make the scams harder for investigators and even savvy users to analyze.
As reported by Sophos in 2024, this industrialized toolkit is one of the key reasons DeFi-based pig butchering scams are growing more quickly and becoming harder to stop.
What makes these scams especially disturbing is the exploitation behind the scenes.
Thousands of young people are deceived with promises of lucrative tech jobs and are instead trafficked into guarded compounds where they’re forced to work as digital scammers.
Reports describe horrific conditions—beatings, food deprivation, and threats of violence—turning what might appear as an online financial crime into a deeply rooted humanitarian crisis.
How Do Pig Butchering Scams Work?
To fully understand how pig butchering scams happen, it’s important to visualize the progression of events:
- Initial Contact
It might start with a “wrong number” text, or an invitation on a dating app. These messages can appear random but are carefully crafted pig butchering emails designed to seem harmless and spark curiosity.
- Relationship Building
Over days or weeks, scammers develop trust, using affection, shared interests, and daily contact. They might talk about pets, work, family, or share photos—often stolen from real people—to build emotional bonds.
- Investment Introduction
Once a relationship is established, the scammer introduces a crypto investment opportunity. They claim insider knowledge, guaranteed profits, or access to exclusive platforms. This is where the overlap between pig butchering vs romance scam becomes clear.
- Fake Platforms
Victims are led to download or visit fake trading platforms that display impressive profits—but it’s all fabricated. These tools are built to mimic real investment apps, complete with dashboards, charts, and fake customer support to reinforce the illusion.
- Escalation and Extraction
Encouraged by initial fake returns, victims are pressured to invest more. Some are even advised to take out loans or liquidate savings. When they attempt to withdraw, they are told they must pay “taxes,” “fees,” or meet special criteria—none of which are real.
- Exit
Eventually, the scammer vanishes, and the website or app becomes inaccessible. Victims are left in shock, often realizing only then that the entire relationship was fake.
- DeFi Exploitation: The New Frontier
But these scams continue to evolve. In more advanced variations, scammers are now leveraging decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and smart contracts to reinforce the illusion of legitimacy.
According to a 2024 report by Sophos, some pig butchering scams avoid fake platforms altogether and instead guide victims through seemingly reputable DeFi interfaces.
These sites may not be inherently fraudulent, but scammers manipulate victims into connecting their crypto wallets and approving malicious smart contract transactions.
This gives the scammer direct access to funds—often in a single click—bypassing the need for fake websites or apps.
Because everything appears technically sound, victims are less likely to suspect anything is wrong until the money is gone.
This method makes the scam significantly harder to detect and even more dangerous.
Why Pig Butchering Scams Target Crypto and DeFi
Unlike traditional scams that rely on phishing or malware, pig butchering scams are uniquely suited to the decentralized and largely anonymous nature of cryptocurrency.
They don’t need to exploit blockchain vulnerabilities—they exploit people. And crypto is the perfect medium for this.
Why Crypto?
Cryptocurrency is borderless, fast, irreversible, and pseudonymous—traits that make it difficult to trace or recover once stolen.
Many victims are convinced to move funds from regulated platforms to private wallets or unfamiliar DeFi apps. Once that transfer occurs, they’re essentially on their own.
Scammers exploit this by creating convincing but fake financial dashboards that mimic real crypto apps.
Sophos research shows that many of these platforms are built using pre-packaged scam kits that display fake balances, profit graphs, and even interactive support chats to reinforce legitimacy.
Some victims even receive referral bonuses—fully simulated—to encourage further deposits.
Why DeFi?
In more advanced cases, scammers skip fake apps entirely and use real DeFi platforms or custom-built Web3 dApps that look and behave like legitimate services.
Victims are guided to connect their wallets via tools like WalletConnect or MetaMask, and unknowingly approve malicious smart contracts.
These smart contracts then silently drain tokens from their wallets.
Because these interactions happen on-chain and through real interfaces, the scams are technically valid from a blockchain perspective—but ethically and legally fraudulent.
They’re also harder to detect using traditional scam filters, making them especially dangerous to newer crypto users.
Fake Liquidity Pools
A growing tactic in 2024 and 2025 is the use of fake liquidity pools. Victims are encouraged to “provide liquidity” to a new token pair (e.g., USDT/KPX or ETH/XYZ) on a scam platform.
The smart contract mimics a staking or farming protocol, and the interface shows rising yield or APY figures. But in reality, the pool is fake, and any tokens “deposited” are immediately routed to the scammer’s wallet.
These scams work because liquidity provision is a normal part of DeFi. The deception lies not in technical flaws, but in social engineering paired with smart contract abuse.
The Rise of Fake Mining Platforms
Another growing tactic involves fake crypto mining apps. Victims are persuaded to install an app or access a web dashboard showing simulated hash rates, mining rewards, and accumulated balances. But no actual mining occurs.
Sophos found these apps are part of larger scam kits reused across hundreds of domains. They even include fake “customer support” agents to maintain the illusion.
In these cases, the scam plays on the familiarity and appeal of passive crypto income—offering low-effort, high-return scenarios.
Victims believe their funds are being invested in mining infrastructure when in fact, their deposits are simply being redirected to scammer-controlled wallets.
Red Flags and Cybersecurity Prevention
Awareness is the first line of defense. Learning how to spot manipulation techniques and verifying financial opportunities through trusted professionals can dramatically reduce your risk.
Pig butchering alert signs include:
- Fast-moving emotional connection
- High-return, low-risk investment offers
- Secrecy or urging not to talk to friends/family
- Elaborate, professional-looking investment platforms
Pig butchering cybersecurity strategies include:
- Using tools like Trend Micro’s ScamCheck or Google Safe Browsing
- Verifying the identity of new online acquaintances through reverse image searches
- Refusing to move funds off major exchanges into obscure platforms
- Consulting licensed financial advisors before making large crypto investments
- Never sharing personal financial information over chat or unverified platforms
How to avoid Romance Baiting Scams
Romance baiting scams thrive on trust and emotional engagement, so prevention starts with skepticism and strong personal boundaries.
To avoid becoming a victim:
- Be cautious of unsolicited messages, especially those that shift quickly from casual conversation to personal topics or financial discussions.
- Never invest based on someone you’ve only met online, regardless of how genuine they seem.
- Avoid clicking on links or downloading apps they recommend without independent verification.
- Use strong privacy settings on social media and avoid oversharing details that scammers could use to build rapport.
- Research any investment platforms independently—look for reviews, licensing status, and possible scam reports.
- Talk to someone you trust if a new online relationship is moving quickly or seems too perfect.
Infamous Pig Butchering Scams
Historical and recent cases of pig butchering scams include:
Enkuu Platform Fraud (2025)
In early 2025, federal authorities dismantled a pig butchering operation centered around a fraudulent crypto platform named Enkuu.
Three individuals—Mingzhi Li, Zeyue Jia, and Jun Shi—were arrested in Los Angeles for allegedly laundering over $13 million through shell companies, including Magic Location Trading LLC and Stone Water Trading LLC .
One notable victim, a 72-year-old man from Minnesota, was persuaded to invest $325,000 into Enkuu. He initially transferred $75,000 to Stone Water and another $250,000 to Magic Trading.
When he attempted to withdraw his funds, he discovered that the platform was a scam and his money was irretrievable.
The scammers presented Enkuu as a cryptocurrency investment opportunity, complete with polished dashboards and promises of high-yield returns.
Victims were led to believe their money was actively traded or mined on legitimate crypto platforms.
Li and Jia, both Chinese nationals who had overstayed student visas, were detained without bond. Shi was released on a $20,000 bond. All three face charges of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, with a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.
Brooklyn Chat Scam (2024)
In early 2024, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office seized nearly two dozen domains linked to pig butchering scandals that operated primarily through Telegram-based crypto chat groups.
Victims were lured into group conversations featuring scripted messages, fake success stories, and bots simulating profitable trades.
These conversations directed users to fraudulent investment platforms, resulting in over $5 million in losses. One victim reported losing $23,000 after being added to a group filled with fake testimonials.
Heartland Tri-State Bank Collapse (2023)
In 2023, Shan Hanes, CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Kansas, embezzled $47.1 million and unknowingly funneled it into a pig butchering crypto scam.
Lured via WhatsApp by fraudsters posing as investors, Hanes initially used his own money, then began diverting bank funds, along with money from a local church, an investment club, and his daughter’s college savings.
The fraud led to the collapse of the bank in July 2023, one of only five U.S. bank failures that year. In August 2024, Hanes was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison, the maximum allowed.
While customer deposits were insured by the FDIC, around $8 million in local shareholder losses occurred. The FBI later recovered $8 million in stolen funds, but the case remains a powerful reminder that even experienced bankers can fall for pig butchering scams.
Huione Group Scam (Reported Since 2021)
Between August 2021 and January 2025, the Huione Group laundered over $4 billion in illicit proceeds, according to FinCEN. This includes more than $37 million traced to North Korea–linked cyberattacks and at least $36 million derived from online romance scams and fraudulent crypto investment schemes.
Operating across Southeast Asia, the group has long used dating apps, messaging platforms, and social media to lure victims—mostly in the West—into fake cryptocurrency platforms.
Their methods rely heavily on social engineering, convincing targets to trust them emotionally before financially exploiting them.
Beyond digital deception, the group is also deeply tied to human trafficking, systematic fraud, and international money laundering. Many of their scam operations are believed to be run out of guarded compounds staffed by trafficked labor.
In 2024, the U.S. Treasury officially sanctioned the Huione Group, citing its role in facilitating pig butchering scams. Several individuals connected to the network have since been named in FBI most wanted lists, as investigations into their global operations continue.
Media Coverage and Public Awareness
John Oliver’s pig butchering crypto scam episode brought major visibility to the issue in 2025, explaining its mechanics and emotional manipulation in detail.
The show highlighted stories where victims lost retirement savings and how human traffickers forced people to run scam centers under duress.
Media outlets like the BBC and podcasts like “Scam Inc.” have also investigated the pig butchering romance scam documentary angle, particularly focusing on the human trafficking aspect.
The term has become widespread enough that searches for pig butchering USA bring up both victim support articles and law enforcement notices.
Many of these resources now explicitly highlight the connection between pig butchering scams and human trafficking operations, particularly in Southeast Asia.
How to Report Pig Butchering Scams and Pursue Legal Action
If you’re a victim, file a pig butchering scam report through:
You can also join class-action efforts. One major pig butchering lawsuit filed in 2025 targeted Qbit and Bytechip for running false platforms. Legal experts warn that while recovery is difficult, early reporting improves the odds.
Forums like pig butchering on Reddit provide emotional and logistical support for victims. Posts often share timelines, blockchain tracking tips, and lists of known scam wallet addresses.
Stay Safe, Be Klever
Pig butchering scams are among the most damaging forms of online fraud, combining emotional manipulation with financial loss. They exploit trust, not just technology—making them especially deceptive.
Understanding how these scams work, spotting the red flags early, and staying informed about ongoing cases and legal actions are essential steps in protecting yourself and others.
As these schemes evolve, vigilance, education, and empathy remain our most powerful tools. And above all, victims deserve support—not blame. The emotional grooming is real, and the fraud is sophisticated.
Staying informed is your first line of defense. Staying Klever is the next.
