New ‘Pig Slaughtering’ Crypto Scam Targets Silicon Valley Techies
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Crypto Romance Scams On The Rise
‘Pig Slaughtering’ is a term used for scams where an individual or a group takes time to build a fake relationship with a victim, often putting in weeks or months of regular engagement with the target.
The scammer then convinces the victim to invest in cryptocurrencies, usually through a duplicate version of a real crypto platform or by convincing them to send funds to a wallet address. The relationship is akin to ‘fattening’ up a victim before the person is looted, just like a pig is ‘fattened up’ before it gets butchered.
One of the victims, who preferred to be identified as Cy, lost $1.2 million after two months of having an online relationship with the scammer. Another example is the case of R where the scammer worked with her for a month before convincing her to send funds to a crypto website, thereby losing $1.3 million.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) previously sent out a warning over crypto- ‘pig slaughtering’ romance scams in April, pointing out that over 4,300 complaints were received by its Internet Crime Complaint Center last year, with total losses reported to be over $429 million.
Similarly, an investigator with cybersecurity company, Sift discovered that 1 in every 20 people she interacted with on dating apps in the San Francisco area was involved in crypto romance scams.