Maybe you’ve gotten a text message from a random number, one that is seemingly confirming a coffee date. Or maybe it said it was nice to meet you the other night. It may have even solicited something more esoteric, like asking to rent your yacht.
When you informed the person sending the text that they had the wrong number, they likely apologized for bothering you. Then, they likely asked, either directly or in a roundabout way, whether you could be friends.
The ruse is part of the latest scam, one investigators call “pig butchering.” If that label sounds gruesome, it should. The name describes a disgusting type of chicanery. The scam gets its name because the charlatans involved aim to fatten victims like piglets before bleeding them dry financially.
“The goal is not to get $500 or $1,000 … it is to entice the victim to a feeling of trust,” said James Gibbons-Shapiro, an assistant district attorney with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
The DA’s Regional Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) recently arrested two people in a local “pig butchering” scam, according to a Dec. 11 press release from the DA’s office. The scam bamboozled a 66-year-old San Jose man out of $170,000 and was attempting to get him to fork over another $348,000 to the scammers.
The suspect, 40-year-old Hong Liu of Rosemead, Calif., appeared in court on Jan. 10. Police have released the other suspect — a 23-year-old woman — after determining investigators had insufficient evidence she knew about the scam.
“Pig butchering” scams have their origin in the pandemic. Lockdowns devastated the casino business. As a new way to make money, the crime syndicates that operate casinos in the Asian Pacific concocted the scheme. They converted casinos in countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia into farms to propagate the scam.
In many ways, the pandemic was the right time to allow such a scam to gain traction. Scammers troll social media or dating websites, looking for lonely, isolated people, people in desperate need of human connection. They cold-call people, attempting to establish a “friendship.” Once they do, scammers rope victims in a bogus cryptocurrency investment.
But the “investment” goes directly into the scammer’s pocket. These sites often look legitimate, Gibbons-Shapiro said. Since the scammers don’t immediately ask for money, he said, it lowers many people’s defenses.
“It is trying to hone in on the emerging but not very well-understood concept of cryptocurrency,” Gibbons-Shapiro said. “The victims are often really educated people. It is not their fault that they have been defrauded by someone using very sophisticated means to defraud them.”
The San Jose victim became suspicious of “Aunt Amelia,” a supposed investment banker he met on Facebook, and contacted the police. A common tactic, Gibbon-Shapiro said, is to tell victims they need “overseas tax” on their “investment” when they go to withdraw it. Victims may even be able to withdraw small amounts of money early in the scam, adding to the facade of legitimacy.
However, this is just one last ditch to squeeze money out of marks.
After the San Jose victim contacted police, REACT investigators posed as him online, convincing “Aunt Amelia” to meet in person to collect the phony tax payment. When Liu arrived to collect, REACT members nabbed him.
Awareness of the scam is key, Gibbons-Shapiro said, since it makes it less likely people will fall for it, removing the incentive for scammers.
While it is easy to blame those enacting the subterfuge, Gibbons-Shapiro said they are rarely the fraud’s architects. Many of the scammers, he said, are victims of human trafficking that syndicate operative force to lure people into their clutches online.
“The real tragedy of these types of scams is that they victimize two groups of people,” Gibbons-Shapiro said.
The DA’s office wants scammers to question whether they are talking to a potential victim or investigators. It has released a tip sheet for potential victims and a public service announcement with information about the scam.
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