What Is A Pig Butchering Scam? (And How To Avoid One)

The Friend You Never Met, The Money You’ll Never See

What is a Pig Butchering scam you may ask? In the world of cybercrime, very few tactics are as lucrative as Pig Butchering scams. They are directly responsible for billions of dollars in losses globally. They are basically a hybrid of a romance scam and investment fraud scam all rolled into one. 

Pig butchering scams have become the favourite method used by global crime syndicates because they blend slick social engineering techniques with the dangling carrot of “guaranteed” crypto returns. It’s easy to see how people can be sucked into this kind of trap. First you are emotionally drawn in, then ‘fattened’ for the eventual ‘slaughter’. 

This newer breed of scam has been made possible by the proliferation of dating and messaging apps and also cryptocurrency which has really helped online scams to grow exponentially over the last ten years. When you add the power of AI being used to create online personas, fake photos and videos (AKA Love GPT), this is a very powerfully convincing way to scam people.

Key Statistics:

“In 2024 alone, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that investment fraud, including pig butchering, accounted for over $4.5 billion in losses-the highest of any crime category.”

FBI Releases Internet Crime Report (April 4, 2024)

The Origin of “Sha Zhu Pan”: Why It’s Not Your Average Scam

The name pig butchering comes from the Chinese term “Sha Zhu Pan” (杀猪盘), which translates literally to “pig butchering” or “killing pig plate” in English. The origin comes from scammers referring to the victims as “pigs” with whom they build trust to “fatten them up” before eventually “slaughtering” by stealing their money. How ruthless!! 

These scammers often operate large call centres in South East Asia which are known as “boiler rooms”. These call centres have historically been filled with teams that are contacting victims and using pre-rehearsed scripts to lure victims into the scam…often via cold calling. 

More recently however these kinds of operations are more likely to be using Love GPT tactics – using AI to almost effortlessly run the romance scams. These highly organised crime syndicates now have the latest technologies available powering their scam factories. It’s no wonder the pig butchering scams are such a success for them. This allows them to scale much more easily with a lot less human effort involved too.

The pig butchering/Sha Zhu Pan scams are also known as “romance baiting”, “financial grooming”, “romance scams”, “cryptocurrency investment scams” or “cryptorom”.  

Phase 1: The “Fattening” – The Psychology Of The Long Con

The “fattening” phase starts with a seemingly innocent, low-pressure interaction that usually begins with curiosity, rather than fear (like in traditional phishing scams). A text might arrive looking for someone else, then when you let them know they have the wrong person the scammer stays engaged and doesn’t disappear. 

Now the scammer pivots to a well practised (and usually templated) script to start to build up rapport. “Oh what a pleasant mistake, seems like maybe we were meant to meet.” This is the first “hook” sinking in.

Once contact has been made and the conversation is flowing, the fattening steps it up a few notches. No mention is made of money, trading or crypto…usually for weeks as that would be too soon. Instead, the scammer focuses on a psychological tactic called “mirroring”, which is where they copy your hobbies, values, style, way of speaking and even time schedule to appear to be a perfect match.

They send photos of their pets and of their dinner…typical things people would send each other as friends or especially when in a relationship. It’s all completely fabricated, however, this behaviour is very likely to make someone feel more comfortable and believe that it’s all real. 

Once they have succeeded at getting you comfortable and lowering your guard, they may start broadcasting subtle messages that imply that they have a “passive income” source that a “wealthy uncle” who is a financial guru introduced them to. You can easily see how all of this stuff is just templated, and re-used over and over again right? They will try to convince you they are living a very comfortable lifestyle that is driven by this mysterious income source. 

Of course you want to know more about it now? They aren’t selling you a product, rather a financially comfortable lifestyle that you really want. And now! They want to trigger FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) in you. They want you to ask them how they are making all of this “passive income”. Then it doesn’t seem like they are pushing it onto you. Clever hey? 

At this stage of the “fattening” phase things can usually escalate into “love bombing”, where an almost overwhelming amount of attention and validation is provided. For victims who are lonely this creates a powerful dopamine hit, and an emotional dependency usually develops fast.   

The final stage of the fattening phase is a small test, just to see if they really have got you onboard for real. The scammer will suggest that the victim try a small investment, often only $500 so as not to trigger alarm bells…and to show you how it works. They are aiming to gain the victims trust, so they will usually let them “withdraw” their initial gains back to their bank account. 

This psychologically sets the victim up to believe that if they put money in, they will get money back. This helps to override any future red flags. Now the victim believes they have found a passive income system that works and that their new friend is real, it is time for the slaughter to commence. 

Phase 2: The “Investment” – How The Trap Is Set

In the investment phase, this is where the “romance” leads into finance. The scammer will do things like send screenshots of their trading profits during a conversation about dinner or a hobby. The scammer is framing their lifestyle and wealth as a by-product of the “proven system”. This can trigger the victim’s curiosity to learn more. 

Once the victim is curious and wanting to know more, this is when the scammer will steer them away from legit regulated crypto exchanges like Coinbase or Binance and move them onto a proprietary platform that they have created themselves. These illegitimate “exchanges” are built to look exactly like a real exchange with fluctuating candlestick graphs, trading prices etc. 

The reality is however that these fraudulent exchanges just look legit, but aren’t. They will have a “deposit” page which will usually have a crypto wallet address that will allow the victim to deposit funds. Once they do, everything that they see in the account is fabricated by the scammers. 

The charts will show the graph and earnings going up and up, but it’s all faked and totally manipulated by the scammers. Essentially the scammers are just stealing your crypto while convincing you that you are profiting. When the figures in your account show you are making large gains, you can see how people can stay convinced they are onto a winner. 

It’s generally at this point that the scammer will push the victim to invest a much larger sum, with the promise of huge profits. This is the fattening reaching its peak level. 

How To Spot A Fake Crypto Exchange Platform

• Check the domain on WHOIS, is it a brand new domain less than 6 or so months old?
• Check for clauses about “locked funds”. Does it say you can’t withdraw without reaching a certain trading volume first?
• Check if the app is a “sideloaded” APK/Profile rather than a verified download from the official Google or Apple app stores?
• Look up the domain on review websites like TrustPilot and ScamAdviser to check for bad ratings and reviews. 

Phase 3: The “Slaughter” – When The Trap Closes

Now we have reached the “slaughter” stage, which is not just a simple loss of money..it is a cleverly calculated all out psychological siege on the victim. The slaughter usually begins when the victim tries to withdraw their “profits”. It’s at this point the house of cards begins to fall.

Often the scammers will send an official looking email from “customer service” stating that their account has been flagged for suspicious activity. Another common one is that the victim will be told that they need to pay a “withdrawal fee” to be able to withdraw their funds. So can we scam you out of some more money while you’re trying to access the money we already scammed from you!? Unbelievable hey!

What we have seen time and time again, is if the victim does agree to pay the withdrawal fee they are then told they have to pay another fee for “taxes”. They will be told that they need to pay a 15% or 20% “tax” to access their “profits”. They will insist that this tax fee is paid separately, it can’t be taken off the so called profit.  

This is essentially a scam within a scam specifically designed to drain the victim’s last remaining money. The pig has now been slaughtered, and suddenly the vibe changes in the communication with the scammers. Gone are the friendly messages, the vibe now is replaced by coldness, impatience, or even hostility.

Next all communication stops. Often the fake trading websites and exchanges will go offline and email addresses start bouncing. Now the victim has no way of contacting the scammers which is just what they want. The victim is left financially ruined, and the “pig butchering” scam has been completed.

Critical Red Flags: How To Spot A “Pig Butcher” Early

Here’s a few tell tale signs that will help you to spot a pig butchering style scam, before it’s too late.

• The refusal to video chat, red flag central!
• Moving the conversion to an encrypted app like WhatsApp or Telegram too quickly.
• Being obsessed with your financial status, huge red flag here.
• Ongoing displays of a luxurious lifestyle (creates FOMO).
• The App for the “crypto exchange” they introduce you to isn’t an official app.
• They add you to a “VIP” group chat full of fake accounts.
• They warn you against talking to your bank about the “investments”.
• If they agree to a video call, watch for glitches which are common with deepfake video tools.
• They ask for remote access to your computer, a major red flag.

The Secondary Scam: Recovery Fraud Warning

Generally speaking most victims of pig butchering scams are quite desperate to get their money back, which is totally understandable. This is why many can end up falling into what is known as an “asset recovery scam” or a “recovery room scam”. 

Essentially, the same scammers contact you out of the blue and claim that they can help you to recover your stolen money. Sometimes they may see you posting on a review website or on Reddit about the fact you got scammed by their brand of fake trading websites. This then gives them a foot in the door and they can approach you saying that they saw your post. 

What the victim doesn’t realise is that it is the same scammers, hiding behind a new “brand” and website pretending to be there to help. As if the original scam – that also had scams within the scam wasn’t enough! It is very common for asset recovery scams to milk the same victims for even more money, that’s if they have any left. 

The majority of asset recovery scammers request an upfront fee (in crypto) which they call a “consultation fee”. This is definitely a telltale sign you’re dealing with a recovery scammer. Another hallmark of the recovery scammers is AI-generated videos and fabricated testimonials. Many will put trust seals on their website and fake certifications too. 

Generally speaking, asset recovery scammers will offer guarantees that they can get your money back. The fact is, no asset recovery company will ever be able to recover everyone’s money, so this is a huge red flag. 

The desire to get your money back is one hell of a powerful emotional trigger, please take our advice and ignore any offers that come out of the blue. These scammers prey on people’s vulnerability. 

Digital Self-Defense: Tools And Tactics For Prevention

Here’s a few things you can use to help stay safe against pig butchering scams, and help you to verify whether things are of concern.

• AI-Powered Message Analysis: If you receive a suspicious text or message, you can use Google Lens or Circle to Search to analyze it. These tools now cross reference the text against global databases of known scam scripts. Cool hey!
  
• WHOIS or RDAP Domain Name Search: Check the domain name registration with whois.com or about.rdap.org. Are they really an “established global leader” when the domain records show the domain is only 90 days old?
  
• Reverse Image Verification: Scammers constantly re-use stolen photos. You can use tools like Google Lens, Yandex Images, FaceCheck.ID or TinEye to search for other copies of the images they are using. Often the photos will show up on forums that are calling out romance scammers. Or you will find the same photos of one person across many social media profiles all under different names.
  
• Blockchain Explorers: Most pig butchering scams rely on Tether (USDT) on the TRON (TRX) network, the main reason for this is it is fast and has low fees. You can use the blockchain explorer tools TRONSCAN or Etherscan to check the risk score of a wallet address, and also to look for high volume churning transactions (large amounts in and out within seconds).
  

Immediate Action Plan: What To Do If You’ve Been Targeted

• Cease all contact and payments.
• Contact Cybertrace so we can assess your case.
• Preserve all of the digital evidence – emails, phone numbers, wallet addresses, chat logs, photos, documents etc.
• Secure your bank accounts if you gave the scammer remote access to your computer. Notify your bank immediately to freeze your accounts. 
• Change your passwords and enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) on your email, banking apps, and legitimate crypto exchanges.
• Use the ReportCyber portal to file an official report with law enforcement. 
• Delete any apps that you used during the scam and do a deep virus scan.

Reclaiming Your Security In A Digital World

The aftermath of a pig butchering scam will likely leave victims traumatised, and will lower their trust in people in general. But they need to remember that it was a multi-billion dollar operation that has been fine tuning these scams and techniques for years. 

It’s not surprising how many people will fall victim to pig butchering scams because they are so slick and sophisticated. While the “pig butchering” scam is designed to leave you feeling hollowed out, the process of rebuilding can make you more resilient and digitally literate than ever before.

Armed with the practical tools and tactics in this guide, you are no longer an easy target. Now you will know how to spot a predator long before they can set their trap.

Have you or has someone you know been the victim of a pig butchering scam? If so, contact Cybertrace now and we can assess your case. We are Australia’s leading cyber investigators, you can see our accreditations and testimonials here.

Feel free to tell us your story in the comments section below if you have been the victim of a pig butchering scam.

Frequently Asked Questions