Pig-Butchering’ Scams Cost Americans Billions. This Lawyer Is Taking Them On.
Prosecutor Erin West has been one of the few to have any success against the criminals perpetrating a new type of fraud
By Feliz Solomon, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 17, 2024
…
The perfect crime
It works like this, investigators say: Gangs, run mainly by Chinese fugitives, set up criminal enclaves in places where law enforcement is weak, such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. There they build industrial-scale compounds and fill them with people who sit at desks manning fake social media profiles. The profiles often appear to belong to beautiful young women who are financially independent but lonely. They seduce people online, convince them they are in love and then get them to pour money into bogus investments.
They are called pig-butchering scams because the swindlers “fatten” up their victims by building trust—over days, weeks, even months—then “butcher” them by taking the money and ghosting them. Some victims lose their life savings, families and even their will to live. … [end quote]
The rest of the long article is about how the “butchers” are often victims of human trafficking and how difficult it is to retrieve the scammed money.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has urged victims to use an online internet crime complaint center, called IC3, to help collect data and build cases. But few are prosecuted and most money is lost.
Like a dangerous disease, the best approach is prevention rather than cure. The scams are run online out of compounds that are run in foreign countries. It’s common sense that nobody should trust a personal (let alone a romantic) relationship with anyone they haven’t met face-to-face. Not to mention sending money.
Wendy
I’ve watched some Youtube vid’s of lonely older women ( and it of course happens to men ) losing every thing to on line scams promising romance. It’s bewildering watching them explain how it happened, it’s like even the smallest dose of common sense would so easily steer them clear of it.
Much of Social Media is fake, in every subject matter. I chuckle at the pitches I see on FB. Can’t believe that people fall for the " I have a proprietary trading system that will make you huge money, if you just rush me $$$$ I will clue you in ". If their system is so great, why would they share it ?
It is so easy to spot this stuff, but maybe if someone has dementia that’s not the case.
If it sounds too good to be true, trust that instinct, lol.
This is going to get worse, Americans have money and assets, so the cyber gangs will not be pulling out of this target rich environment.
But that’s the entire issue in a nutshell. Perhaps 3 out of 100 people don’t have that instinct. So the scammers search for those 3, and maybe 2 out of those 3 eventually seek out advice, or educate themselves, but that leaves one of them to be scammed. And if these boilershops can get 1 out of 100 that’s good enough to stay in the business of scamming people.
There is still an enormous amount of gullibility in the population as a whole and the pull of getting something for nothing (or relatively little) is gravitational on many.
And, of course, there is always intercst’s oft-quoted dictum: “America has long celebrated ignorance and innumeracy. It’s a birthright in some parts of the country.”
I have a Twitter account which I only use for reading, not tweeting. I typically get between one and five new followers a day, all of them attractive women looking for romance or people pumping crypto.
I understand how the pig butchering thing can happen, but just the sheer volume of fake profiles would cause people to have doubts.
I am propositioned by hos on FB often. They always start out “i found your profile interesting. please send me a friend request so we can get better acquainted.”