Cryptocurrency is rife with scams—we all know this to be true. Everybody’s heard the horror stories: “rug pulls,” “pump and dumps,” the typical “investment” ploy that leaves your bank account high and dry. But there’s a new type of fraud going around and it sounds pretty goddamn weird: it’s called “pig butchering” and you’re definitely going to want to steer clear of it.
Also known by its Chinese translation “Shāzhūpán,” “pig butchering” is a bizarre mashup of a romance scam and an investment scheme—a calculated game of manipulation designed to exploit lonely web users and take them for all they’ve got. The trend originated in Southeast Asia, and the name refers to the way in which hogs are “fattened up” before ultimately being led off to the slaughter. In this case, the pigs (the victims) get “slaughtered” when the fraudsters successfully convince them to invest in a phony cryptocurrency platform, then disappear with their money. Charming stuff, no?
Reports of these scams appear to be growing, too. The FBI has apparently received so many lately that, earlier this year, it put out a PSA warning about them. It also put out another alert earlier this week about fake cryptocurrency exchanges—which is a common feature of the scam.
The most bizarre part of the creepy new trend is the fact that many of the scams are being pushed by Asian crime syndicates, which force droves of…
