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Author Topic: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)  (Read 4581 times)

Offline ainat

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Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« on: October 02, 2021, 03:28:24 PM »
Online ‘pig butchering’ love scams have gone global after getting their start in China
Mandy Zuo in Shanghai | 30 Sep, 2021

A scamming strategy called “pig butchering” that started in China is spreading beyond both border and language, transforming into a global fraud racket.

According to the Global Anti-Scam Organisation, a volunteer-led advocacy group, the primary victims of the scheme outside China are Chinese nationals or ethnically Chinese people living in Southeast Asia. But more than a third of the duped people were non-Chinese people in North America and Asia, showing how the demographic targeted is rapidly expanding.

Called sha zhu pan in Chinese, or “pig butchering” in English, the scam involves the perpetrator building a relationship, often romantic but not always, with the victim over months, akin to fattening the pig, before convincing them to invest money into a fake venture, slaughtering the animal.

The losses were often significant, averaging US$98,000 based on 240 victims surveyed by the Global Anti-Scam Organisation. About 70 per cent of the victims were women.

Unlike traditional romance scams, most of those who fell for “pig-butchering” scams were people in their 20s and 30s who have a decent education, with nearly 90 per cent of them holding a bachelor’s degree or higher.

“The immense scale, professional training, and organised operation behind each scam are astonishingly sophisticated,” the authors wrote in the report.

“The most successful perpetrators are irresistible online conversationalists who are incredibly well-versed about life and finances in the cities and countries they target.”

The scam left about a third of the victims in debt, and over 40 per cent lost more than half of their net worth, the report said.

The group said such scams became common in North America in late 2020.

“It far too often destroys the lives of people who had bright futures at the prime of their careers – draining bank accounts, breaking families, straining marriages, derailing life goals and triggering suicides,” it said in a press release.

A Taiwanese victim of the scam started the Global Anti-Scam Organisation in 2019.

Pig butchering was first reported in China in the early 2010s, but it spread like wildfire after 2018 because Chinese scammers took advantage of ethnically Chinese people interested in the gambling industry in Southeast Asia.

Casino gambling is illegal in China, except in the Macau special administrative region. Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines, Cambodia and Singapore became attractive gambling destinations for Chinese nationals.

In the Philippines, gambling websites called POGOs (Philippines Offshore Gaming Operators) target Chinese nationals gambling online and have become big business, and a headache for Filipino authorities.

Sophisticated fake corporate operations, largely made up of people of Chinese descent, targeted these Chinese nationals by asking them to place bets on their fake website, where they would never receive any payout for their “winnings”.

The demographic has expanded in recent years and the scams are no longer confined to online gaming platforms or Chinese nationals.

There is no official data on the number of pig butchering scams busted in China each year, but figures from some local governments suggest they are rampant.

Last week, Beijing police busted an 18-person gang based in Myanmar who tricked more than 50 victims across China out of nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.55 million), according to Beijing Daily.

It far too often destroys the lives of people who had bright futures at the prime of their careers. Global Anti-Scam Organisation

Last year in Changsha, the capital city of central China’s Hunan province, police busted 270 separate online scams that stole over 500,000 yuan (US$77,300). Half of them were love-investment scams, the city’s public security bureau said in January.

According to the report, the cases are difficult for police to prosecute, partly because scammers have leveraged the anonymity and lack of jurisdiction provided by cryptocurrencies.

“The scammers would not have been so successful without the technology and services of the digital ecosystem, yet victims and their immediate families are left to bear the entire costs of the scam and resulting debts to banks, lending agencies and loan sharks.”

If you are having suicidal thoughts, or you know someone who is, help is available. For Hong Kong, dial +852 2896 0000 for The Samaritans or +852 2382 0000 for Suicide Prevention Services. In the US, call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on +1 800 273 8255. For a list of other nations’ helplines, see this page: https://ibpf.org/resource/list-of-international-suicide-hotlines

Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/social-welfare/article/3150688/online-pig-butchering-love-scams-have-gone

Offline greentara

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2022, 05:35:11 PM »
Woman in S'pore lost $240,000 in 'pig-butchering' scam after fraudster courted her for months
Anjali Raguraman | 20 Feb 2022

SINGAPORE - After six months of trying to pay back banks, moneylenders and creditors, Christine (not her real name) finally started bankruptcy proceedings over a huge debt. The 37-year-old Malaysian nurse working in Singapore is a victim of a pig-butchering scam.

This hybrid of romance and investment scams see fraudsters pretend to be a love interest to swindle unsuspecting partners.

With a total debt of $270,000 and no recourse, Christine attended a court hearing on Thursday (Feb 17) to declare bankruptcy.

"If possible, I wouldn't want to declare bankruptcy, but it's a better option for me now," said Christine, who is originally from Penang, Malaysia, breaking down in tears over the phone.

Having been apart from her family in Malaysia because of Covid-19 related travel restrictions, the loneliness drove her to seek companionship in a mystery stranger who sent her a direct message on Instagram.

The stranger claimed to be a 34-year-old Shanghainese interior designer, based in Vancouver, Canada.

A friendship quickly sparked, and they were soon talking daily via texts and voice calls.

He seemed legitimate enough, sharing pictures and videos from his daily life - whether it was pictures of his meals, or him skiing while on holiday.

"He kept saying to me 'why don't you find a partner, you don't want to end up stuck in an old folks' home alone without a family'," said Christine.

"I only wanted to remain as friends with him since he was a free-thinker... but when he gave in and said he would follow me to church, that's when I gave in too."

Three weeks into the conversation, he brought up investments.

She started off small, and eventually ended up investing US$5,000 (S$6,700) in the first month.

In the midst of it, she had lost $30,000 in a separate loan scam.

Her new love interest, who consoled her through this loss, suggested that she could make back the $30,000 "pretty easily", if she invested in his platform.

He even pumped $10,000 into her account to convince her.

He reeled her in further, promising to fly over from Vancouver in October, to make it in time for a surgical procedure for her heart that she had to undergo.

She pumped in around $150,000, borrowed via bank loans, in order to keep the investments rolling. He also helped her with purchasing and selling shares.

"When I saw the profits reaching the target of $30,000, I wanted to pull out because it was very stressful to keep borrowing money and making enough to pay it back with interest," she said.

"I even told him I wanted to break up," she said.

But the scammer threatened to take his life. "He said to me, 'Why are you leaving me? We've been through all this, we still have a long way to our future.'"

He also offered to resign from his job and move to Singapore, and get a permanent resident pass via his friend's company.

Convinced, she stayed on. The promise of the relationship also drove her to invest more money.

She funded this by going to moneylenders, and selling her car.

"I also managed to borrow from friends and family also saying it was for urgent use... They know my character and that I'd never borrowed money before," she said.

Taking out a mortgage on her house in Malaysia was the last resort.

In September last year - her last investment - she pumped in $70,000. At that point, she had invested a total of $240,000 on the platform.

It was her father who warned her about investment scams, telling her she needed to make sure she could withdraw her funds.

He sent her a link to an article on a Chinese website about pig butchering scams, about a woman who had lost around $500,000.

When she read the article, she got a shock. It had photos of the same man she had been speaking to for the last four months.

The red flags started to make sense.

The investment platform she was on could be accessed only by a dedicated website and not via an established app or trading platform like Kraken, Gemini or Crypto.com

Also he did not want to do video calls with her. He said: "We have to keep some surprise for when I see you."

When she confronted him about it, he denied it and said he was disappointed with her accusation.

In a panic, she then tried to withdraw $140,000 she had in the account but was told by the customer service site that they did not have a merchant online that could do the transaction. She hit this wall several more times.

When she eventually got one online with his assistance, they told her that in order to withdraw such a large amount and for "safety purposes", she would have to top up the funds and invest a further $240,000.

Upon realising that her account was frozen, she found Singapore-based non-profit Global Anti-Scam Organisation (Gaso) online, which confirmed that she had been scammed. They advised her not to top up the funds.

Christine she hit her lowest point in September to December last year, when she contemplated suicide.

"Banks were calling me daily at work," she said. "I got so stressed when I was unable to pick up their calls."

Given the amount of money that she owed, she did not qualify for the Debt Repayment Scheme, which assists debtors with a regular income and debts not exceeding $150,000 to avoid bankruptcy.

In the last five months, she has attempted to pay back as much of her debts as possible, even taking up part-time jobs and working on her days off and public holidays.

However, her salary of around $4,000 a month is barely enough to cover the amount owed - $1,200 a month as part of a company loan and $1,000 a month to pay off moneylenders.

The rental for her current shared housing in a HDB flat takes up another $850 per month, while she pays $700 a month for a property in Penang.

This leaves her with all of $250 a month for any other expenses.

Her last contact with the scammer was in October last year, after which she made a police report.

However, she has no means of recouping her losses.

Christine hopes that by sharing her story, and the modus operandi of scammers, others will not make the same mistakes she made.

"It's a huge syndicate, it's hard to take them down... but (when I wanted to take my life) I realised what I can do is help create awareness," she said.

"That's the only reason that I'm still living. I don't want it to go to waste."

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/she-lost-240000-in-pig-butchering-cryptocurrency-scam-after-fraudster-courted-her-for-months

Offline greentara

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2022, 05:35:49 PM »
Behind the Pig Butchering Scams (online relationship-investment frauds)


Offline greentara

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2022, 05:45:02 PM »
The Pig-Butchering Plate a.k.a. Sha Zhu Pan (殺豬盤), Crypto Romance Scam (CryptoRom), Romance Baiting

"A relationship-investment fraud cybercrime, con artists on dating apps, and social media groom a target over weeks to become interested in investing in cryptocurrency, forex, gold, etc. The scammers do not ask for money directly, but instead, introduce a target to a sham investment website or app they control. Using a series of ploys with "customer service", the relationship scammers cajole and bully-victims into depositing more and more funds into the victims' own "account" inside the sham platform. Victims will not be able to withdraw their funds in the end."

Source: https://www.globalantiscam.org/about

Archive: https://archive.fo/Sq86C

Offline ainat

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2022, 06:02:02 PM »
How To Tell if You're Being Scammed: Love Scammers' Tactics Exposed


Offline ainat

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2022, 12:55:04 PM »
A Nurse and her Lover: The Anatomy of a Scam | CloseUp





Transcript:

He caused me to go and borrow from money
lenders
to mortgage my house and even to borrow
from my parents again
i just wanted to help him
you hear him
actually
i
don't
losing everything i just want a word
sorry from him
scammers they have become a menace to
society in the last five years they have
internet thousands in singapore cheating
victims of over a billion dollars how do
they do it i dig into the world of
scammers and speak to three people who
help us dissect scams and understand how
these fraudsters work
laura is a 38 year old healthcare worker
she came to singapore from malaysia in
2015. in june 2021 laura receives a
message on instagram from a man libetu
he claims that he is a shanghainese
working overseas and shared these photos
purportedly of himself and his life
[Music]
he told me that he's in
vancouver
all right as a interior design he has a
part-time job investing in
cryptocurrency as well he will share
what he's cooking what is he what is he
doing
like his painting that kind of thing
it's it looked quite real and that time
i thought oh i'll find someone that i
can talk to
[Music]
alone in singapore and working long
hours laura felt cared for by this man
who sent her numerous messages a day
you feel
attachment like every day there's
someone to ask how are you what are you
doing
after i broke off with my
last
boyfriend
i was hoping to find someone
how to say can rely on
someone who is mr right
[Music]
slowly after one week he told me that he
wanted to go out with me like dating
having relationship
what were some of the things that you
were hoping to find
firstly definitely is christianity
secondly
a person who understands me
can share my burden and share my
thoughts
and you felt that at that time
the scammer made you feel
all those things
yes
[Music]
it was also during the pandemic right
you were working in healthcare so i mean
it must have been very tiring for you
the scammer did say that he understand
my pain he understand my work hours is
long
he kind of like made me
look forward for future
with him
having created this shared dream he
begins to talk about how they can work
towards it together
he taught me about cryptocurrency what
is ethereum what is bitcoin
and
it turned out to be a loan scam posing
as a legitimate credit company a1 credit
laura lost 30 000
to secure the loan
the scammer told me that don't worry we
can earn back that 30k is not a big
amount i went to loan extra from
the bank but i feel that once i earn
better 30k i just want to withdraw i
just want to stop and pay every one back
okay
and i will end this relationship with
him then he said please don't leave me
[Music]
his appeal worked still hopeful that he
is mr right laura stays on in the
relationship
he even
transferred a 10 000 into my
platform
in order to help me up
within this investment
so after a few days he came back to me
he said that they need
a bigger fund
for their group fund in order to
maintain the profit instead of losing
everything
anxious to help the man she thought
would be her future husband laura
borrows from her parents and friends
mortgages her home and takes out yet
more loans from moneylenders
laura's own debt balloons to 270
thousand dollars
i
couldn't eat well i couldn't sleep well
and it affected my heart
and i got admitted
he suggested i should go for a surgery
for my condition
which i didn't
i decided to hold on because the scammer
told me that
he
would like to come to singapore to
accompany me during my procedure
and there is a time that he told me that
maybe i should go and loan more money so
that we can earn faster and then he can
come to singapore earlier
um
one day my dad sent me a link
saying that there's a lady being scammed
and when i opened up the link
the person that scanned the lady is the
same person i'm
talking to now the scanner
[Music]
my world will just crumble and i don't
know who to ask who to call who to talk
to
questions may arise over why victims
such as laura seem so naive the answer
lies in scammers careful analysis of
targets and their needs and then
manipulating them accordingly
i speak to police psychologist carolyn
misser whose job is to get into the
minds of scammers
she says that what laura experienced is
a common technique used by scammers
what happens is that
the scammer actually
tailors a profile to suit the victim
okay so if the victim is for example
villagers uh you know and really wants a
family for example then the scammer will
pretend to be very religious
firstly definitely is christianity after
the fourth week
he told me that okay he decided to
become a christian
and they're very active in using these
so-called scripts or mirroring so when
they you know send out messages and get
to know victims they will ask a lot of
questions and the reason is that they
want to understand the profile of the
victim so that they can match
accordingly a lot of victims told us
that they found their soulmate they fell
in love almost instantly because it was
such a great match you know everything
just aligned and i suppose that when you
think you found that you are willing to
do anything yeah because you know it's
somebody that you love naturally
you would want to help that person
when we've looked at the literature both
internationally and our own local
research
really anybody can fall prey to scams
professors lawyers banking people
even though they know the industry well
in that sense what are some
vulnerabilities that these scammers are
tapping into you know is it our
isolation is it our need to be loved
different scams would take advantage of
different
vulnerabilities
for example in loan scams the scammer
would you know offer very cheap interest
rate very
little documents are needed you can get
your loan very quickly but you need to
transfer this processing fee first
that's when
i went to find a
personal loan
on the internet that person keep saying
that oh we need to have opening accounts
we need to have registration
administrative fee all those things
laura has fallen prey to a fake website
on google the website impersonates a
real loan company such spoofed sites are
becoming more common with technology
allowing the pilfering hands of scammers
to reach even further
one very common scam is the
google ads scam so what happens is that
scammers can actually buy advertisements
on google pretending to be let's say dbs
or ocbc bank they can actually put their
own phishing contact number inside the
advertisement
lee jipong a data scientist gained
internet fame in late 2021 as captain
zinke when he demonstrated just how easy
it was to create spoofed text messages
from banks and the authorities including
the imda
well spoofing phishing they all belong
to this family of social engineering
where you manufacture right
scam campaigns based on authenticity
knowing that people will fall prey to
back when the scam happened it was very
easy you could just sign up for a third
party service and you could send sms
with basically anybody's name
so actually when you first got into it
you know were you trying to get into the
mind of the scammer what was sort of
your process i have friends and family
that were scammed before i have a
computer background coding background so
i wanted to you know just figure out the
mechanics of it
jipang demonstrates just how easy it is
to impersonate some companies whose
services i regularly use and trust such
as chris flyer and grab
so this is the message from zp
oh well it gets grouped together with
all my other legit quiz flyer messages
isn't that crazy well i got goosebumps
yeah it's always grouped together
while singapore has stepped in with a
sms sender id registry that can block
spoofed messages it is always a race to
be a step ahead of the scammers
when we identify that scammers are using
new ways of conducting the scam we
should always quickly get the word out
protect the more vulnerable members of
the society right and then uh hopefully
we can work together and stop the scams
after receiving the news reports from
her father laura confronts beiji over
subsequent days she undergoes an
emotional roller coaster as she lurches
between demanding answers and pleading
with him to stay
finally he holds vulgarities at her and
terminates the relationship
[Music]
in the aftermath of being scammed not
once but twice laura declares bankruptcy
for six months she worked seven days a
week to clear her debt she still owes
creditors two hundred and forty thousand
dollars she has also launched a police
report against beijing and taken things
a step further tracking him down
she bends with other women who were also
his victims
how did you all find each other three
women right
i was the first one then the second
victim was the person that i reached out
in instagram
when i followed his instagram is look
for new
people who may be the victims while
liking his photos
one of the victims is from hong kong and
the other two are singaporeans together
the four women track down his ip address
and find out that he was in fact in
cambodia they pulled together the
information they have about beiji
including his many identities one of his
aliases is fung ubo according to this
passport they also surmise that beijing
is in fact a team of scammers who take
turns to text the women
the women have passed the information on
to the singapore police and according to
laura investigations are still ongoing
the straits times has also contacted
liberty through his instagram account
about the women's accusations he has not
responded
i feel that
the world is a bit different now i used
to be
very trusting
i can talk with anyone i can talk with
patients easily
open their hearts guide them through
their difficulties but now it's
difficult for me to
break the ice
i'm trying
but yes
some people will say oh yeah you know
it's the victims to payla
you know
when you don't get scammed it's not
because you're very clever it's so sad
because the script that they use on you
doesn't suit you
many may think that scams trap only the
foolish but dissecting the anatomy of
scams has shown us otherwise scammers
strike at hearts deploy mind games and
are often a step ahead in using
technology to prey on society
and anybody can be a victim
victims are actually not
stupid they are actually human and that
is our only flaw i guess.

Offline ainat

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2022, 01:17:02 PM »
Asia's Tinder Swindlers: Exposing Love Scam Rings In Cambodia





Transcript:

I met wang in a dating platform
he will
share with me photos of him up with his
friends
or show me photos of dinner
seems like an all-rounder man successful
in business and he can also cook and
take care of his family it's like every
woman's dream
he start to
flirt with me telling me your voice is
so sweet are you attached his favorite
phrase is for our future
[Music]
he will use a lot of romantic phrases
whereby no one ever said to me so
make me feel wow
like
in the fairy tale
modern love stories that start out like
any other
until
[Music]
i invest
close to 50k into this investment
platform within two days it's gone
he will just share with me like oh my
analyst informed me that there will be
good opportunity coming up so i've put
in about 300 over a thousand
but in one night i lost everything
more than 10 million singapore dollars
that's how much victims like mavis and
kayla lost to their online
lovers through bogus investment
platforms last year
in this special edition of talking point
i want to find out why these women are
falling for love scans and my
investigation has brought me here to
cambodia
[Music]
this country is among several in
southeast asia where online love scam
syndicates have been uncovered in recent
years
i finally found someone who works in a
scam organization and he's agreed to
speak to me on condition of anonymity
my contact wants to be known only as lee
he is one of thousands in authenticate
whose aim is to get women to fall in
love with him
his targets
americans and asians including
singaporeans the victims are also
getting younger and more educated
[Music]
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
foreign
according to local news reports pig
butchering scam compounds are found in
various places in cambodia but mr lee
also tells me that the scam compounds
are most concentrated in a coastal city
called sihanoukville
[Music]
the area is well known for its pristine
beaches
how did a place like this become a
breeding ground for pig butchering
syndicates
i'm heading to the heart of
sihanoukville to find out it looks so
secretive that who knows what's going on
inside there
[Music]
before one i actually met another guy
in the same dating platform
[Music]
within a short span of one month he
scanned me more than 150 000.
i was very devastated and i approached
wang for advice he comforted me and said
that
and he claims that he can help me to
recover the amount that i have lost
he asked me to put money into this
platform but i was very reluctant
so
in the end he just tell me all right
never mind i'll just deposit this 520
for you it means my love to you
when all this process done already my
profit is actually 100
so he immediately promised to redraw
this to my bank account
definitely i feel well
really has such thing
see hanukkah a coastal city about five
hours drive away from phnom penh
international media outlets call this a
dangerous town due to the high volume of
crimes including kidnapping and murder
reports reveal that this place is rife
with chinese criminal networks
i'm here because i've been told that
this is the area to go if i want to find
syndicates involved in love scams
i've noticed that practically every sign
every building has got signs in two
languages kameer language and chinese
language
a local is guiding me to one of the
areas notorious for its crime and online
scam gangs
this whole area
with many buildings the local people
call chinatown
it looks like a heavily guarded
condominium compound
it makes you wonder what's going on
inside that it needed to be so heavily
guarded
on the outside this looks like a typical
apartment complex but local reports say
this area is where scammers from
multiple syndicates live and work
they engage in various types of scams
including
love scams
i can see that there are shops in there
so it's quite self-sufficient
in the last few years the local police
have read the scam operation in
chinatown
and few people have been arrested
local reports say chinatown is among
dozens of scam hubs operating in
sihanoukville
i'm on my way to meet uvirak a political
analyst he's been closely monitoring the
developments of scam activities in
sihanoukville for the last few years
how did sihanoukville become a hotbed
for pig butchering scam activities
centerville is a strategic location it
has the most important deep sea port for
all of our imports and exports
a long-term legitimate chinese
investment including building roads and
expressways
a lot of the legitimate flows of money
also come the flows of people
many of these shady characters ride on
that and just come and we're starting to
see in the city
that's growing so rapidly that casino is
becoming the front and anything that's
happening whether it's money laundering
various camps and love scam is no
exception all happening
under this this this banners of
development
with little oversight by authorities on
their operations some casinos became a
shell for organized crime syndicates
has this resulted in the authority
stepping up enforcement there's a lot
more efforts to trying to clean up
the image of cinderella photos and the
videos of the crackdowns signed the
surface online
but many of these crackdowns they're too
few and far in between this is why we
still continue to see crimes happening
in sydneyville
earlier i drove by chinatown in
sihanoukville
according to khmer times a local media
outlet condominium compounds like the
ones in chinatown can hold tens of
thousands of people
how do scam syndicates recruit on such a
massive scale
[Music]
i'm dialing in to jacob sims who has
been directing a non-governmental
organization in cambodia for the past
two years
he's in the u.s for a few weeks for an
international conference
jake how do these syndicates recruit the
scammers what we are seeing is that
facebook ads or ads on other social
media channels are used
to draw in people they're offered jobs
with a compelling salary often times
funding for travel and visa expenses are
promised and then when they arrive
to the centers they're forced to conduct
scams against their will
[Music]
these job postings are open to anyone
overseas who are interested in applying
for jobs in cambodia
the people who have been forced to work
in these compounds which countries do
they come from we've seen the highest
numbers of chinese from china and thai
malaysian and indonesian workers but
we're also seeing people from the
philippines
myanmar bangladesh even as far as turkey
human traffickers supply syndicates with
scammers skilled in multiple languages
they also fill the void in manpower
caused by the pandemic
jacob's organization is one of the few
in cambodia that are actively rescuing
trafficked victims from scam compounds
how do you rescue these people there are
existing hotlines so when we receive a
complaint a referral we provide an
intervention request to the government
and then we coordinate between the
police and the embassy to try to
motivate and facilitate
a rescue
what do you know of the conditions of
that confinement we have heard
range from what you would consider maybe
fairly mild maybe they aren't allowed to
leave they've had their passports taken
but they're given adequate food and pay
all the way to the range of people being
significantly physically abused
tasered having food and water and sleep
withheld not receiving their pay
but surely not all of them are victims i
mean some of them could be there because
they were in for the money right that's
correct uh it is definitely not the case
that all of these people are there
against their will how do you verify
that the people who reached out to you
have in fact been trafficked
so it's impossible for us to fully
verify that we're collecting witness
testimonies from them and then we're
actually also asking for additional
witnesses that are in similar situations
and we're looking for consistency of
their stories from different media
reports that have come out a large
number of those people
are
victims of human trafficking
but what happens to these trafficked
scammers after they're rescued
and i joined a band of women taking
matters into their own paths it looks
like he's moving in for the kill
[Music]
i've put in about 300 over 1000 into the
trading platform
but in one night i lost everything
i found this google reaper search
function
[Music]
i didn't expect that this photo is
actually linked to a waypoor
account
i confronted him he would say that this
person is impersonating him
using his photos
i didn't share with my family members
about this
because definitely they will think that
how come you're so stupid to be able to
scam by someone you didn't meet
face to face
i invest
close to 50k
into this investment platform
within two days it's gone
he requested some intimate video and
photos of myself the moment when i broke
up with him my friend already warned me
he may use this to threaten you
i shut down all my social media
what can i do
because of this i end my life it's very
stupid
but it's really mentally very torturing
i've just discovered that some scammers
themselves are victims
remember lee the scammer i met earlier
he also said that one of the things he
really wanted to do with the money he
would earn from scamming is to take a
cruise on the recon river well i've
arranged that and i'm on my way to meet
him
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
in valley a month mr lee went from being
a worker in a chinese restaurant to a
trained lover and there are many others
like him who are schooled in the art of
making women like me part with our money
in exchange for romance and the promise
of financial returns
i guess mr lee was lucky he was rescued
but the fact is that he remains stuck
here in cambodia i'm going home soon and
i hope he gets to do the same
back in singapore i'm trailing the
journey of scammed victims
i contacted grace wynn
she's a spokesperson for the global
anti-scam organization based in the u.s
most members in this group are pick
butchering scam victims including those
from singapore
there are also vigilantes one of their
teams do something called scam baiting
in scam baiting what is the end game
the
earliest point is getting the
black platforms url that are associated
with the scam company
black urls are essentially links to
fraudulent investment platforms
can you teach me how to do it yeah i'm
happy to do so
to start off i'll have to create a
social media profile with stock photos
bought online
[Music]
then reach out to potential love
scammers on dating platforms and social
media sites
these scammers tend to identify
themselves as businessmen or investors
and post photos and videos that flaunt
their lavish lifestyles
so i'm talking to this guy who claims
he's singaporean but grew up overseas we
are getting to know each other
he's even asked me about my relationship
status
earlier i told him that i enjoy reading
and he replied to say that he does too
as a matter of fact he even sent me
pictures of some books on investments
that he thinks i should be reading
okay looks like he's moving in for the
kill
he sent me a link that is supposed to
take me to a mining pool once i click on
it
then i should create an account with
customer service and to activate the
account i have to deposit a minimum of
500 singapore dollars
obviously i didn't send any money and
he's getting impatient his messages are
coming fast and furious and at one point
he even tried to video call me what i
want to know right now is how is this
link going to help in the anti-scamming
effort
great so now that i've got the black url
what happens next what gasol does is
they'll post it on our site so those who
have not been scammed yet to be able to
google search
the urls to see whether they are
legitimate or not
are there risks involved in exposing
myself to a scammer
it's not um so risky to your physical
health but psychologically it can be
very difficult for some people who end
up reliving parts of their skin
considering the mental toll why continue
with the scam baiting
scam dating helps
uh gaso
understand the tactics that change and
this helps prevent future victims the
second thing is that there's a limit to
what local law enforcement can do it
it's clear that the scammers are out of
the jurisdiction of the countries in
which the scan victims live so scam
dating can be therapeutic for the
victims they're sort of the revenge
aspect of it which is that they pretend
that that scammer just like their own
scammer and now they're going to be
getting back at them by wasting their
time
singapore is one of the richest
countries in the world that makes us
targets for scammers
syndicates are getting more
sophisticated and well organized
boasting an army of scammers well
drilled in sales and psychology
techniques and they prey on a desire for
not just love but money too
they are also notoriously difficult to
uproot still we need to stop the bad
guys from winning one way is for more
victims to step forward so that fewer
will be caught unaware by the scammer's
tactics as for me the one thing i've
learned is we should never think nah it
won't happen to me you.

Offline ainat

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #7 on: October 05, 2022, 02:08:07 PM »
How One Man Lost $1 Million To A Crypto ‘Super Scam’ Called Pig Butchering
Cyrus Farivar | Senior Writer, Tech & Innovation | Sep 9, 2022

A 271,000-word WhatsApp conversation between a Bay Area man and his scammer reveals the heartbreaking mechanics of a new breed of investment racket. Experts believe the global losses are in the billions.

The message to Cy's WhatsApp came out of the blue.

“Jessica" told him she'd found his number in her phone contacts and was reaching out because she thought they might be old colleagues. Cy, a 52-year-old man who lives in the Bay Area, didn't remember her, but she was kind, cordial and engaging. She sent pictures of what she was eating. They discussed their mutual love of sushi, and Cy enjoyed the conversation enough to follow up with her the next day.

Soon, the text exchanges moved from the anodyne to the personal. Cy told Jessica about his struggles to support his family, about his ailing father and how the decision to send his father to hospice care weighed on him.

That was October 2021. By December, Cy had been conned out of more than $1 million dollars — over a quarter of it, borrowed money. His finances were in ruins. Cy, who asked Forbes to identify him by that pseudonym, had been “pig butchered.”

Pig butchering is a relatively new long-game financial con in which “pigs,” or targets, are “butchered” by people who convince them to invest ever-larger sums in purported cryptocurrency-fueled trading platforms. The fake platforms are designed to look real, and make the victims believe that their investments are making fantastic returns — until their scammer, and all the money they believe they’ve invested, disappears.

Victims often lose significant sums, and the practice is so lucrative that it’s being scaled up and carried out en masse in countries like Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. So far, American law enforcement officials at both the federal and local level have made little headway in recovering stolen funds or catching the perpetrators.

    These scams are carried out “on a large scale, on an industrial scale — like they’re doing fraud in a factory.”
    –Jan Santiago, the deputy director of the Global Anti-Scam Organization

Complicating law enforcement efforts is the issue of human trafficking. Human rights advocates say many of the scammers are victims themselves, people lured to countries across southeast Asia by the prospect of a better-paying job and then forced to run pig butchering scams, sometimes at the threat of violence. Often, their passports and cellphones are seized upon arrival.

These scams are carried out “on a large scale, on an industrial scale — like they’re doing fraud in a factory,” Jan Santiago, the deputy director of advocacy group Global Anti-Scam Organization, told Forbes. He estimates that the global losses are in the billions.

Cy lost more than $1 million dollars to such a scam. The manipulation played out via a months-long, heartbreaking WhatsApp conversation that runs more 271,000 words — 480 single-spaced pages.

The transcript, which Cy shared with Forbes, reveals how Jessica turned his fears and insecurities to her advantage. Cy, with an ailing father, an overworked wife, and a daughter soon entering college, found Jessica’s seemingly quick and easy financial gains alluring. These details about his private life would soon become the wedge that Jessica drove between Cy and his money, relentlessly, for weeks on end. At every juncture, she egged him on to spend more.

This is the story of how one scammer ruined a man’s life.
“I DON’T WANT YOU TO WORK SO HARD”

As Cy got to know Jessica, he was increasingly intrigued by claims that she had been making boatloads of cash by trading on MetaTrader, an app available on Apple’s App Store. Jessica told him that she’d been getting insider gold trading tips from a mysterious uncle in Hong Kong, the same place where Cy’s parents were from.


    10/20/21


    Cy: Why you want to share this with me?


    Jessica: Because of your father

    Jessica: You have a hard time


    Cy: Not only that. I need to support my siblings.


    Jessica: My grandpa is in the hospital

    Jessica: I don't want you to work so hard


    Cy: I’m the only one born here and does a good job financially so I need to help them

    Cy: if I lose the money, I will suicide in secret


    Jessica: Trust me, the message is 100% accurate


In late October, Jessica texted Cy just after 10 a.m. California time: “Uncle’s call is just to tell me the news of the evening,” she said, explaining that she had new insider information they could both use to make a profit. She encouraged Cy to run a simulated trade: “No money is needed.”

Within minutes, Jessica walked Cy through the process, step-by-step, in an authoritative tone.

“If you want to make money, just listen to me,” she wrote. She told him to download the brokerage app MetaTrader 5 to his iPhone and gave him some simple instructions. The interface on his phone showed two buttons: Red was to “buy down,” and blue was to “buy up.”

Cy lost money in the simulation, but Jessica reassured him, insisting she had turned a $5 million investment into $10 million with similar insider information.


    10/20/21


    Jessica: The money you earn can better help your father


    Cy: I’m not greedy as long as it is safe


    Jessica: Ok, let's talk back


    Cy: Ok.


    Jessica: It's definitely safe, I have been for many years


    Cy: So you have made over $10m USD?


    Jessica: NO 5M is my investment

    Jessica: Earned 5M


    Cy: I c. You should move the money to real estate afterwards.

    Cy: If I can earn that much, I can help so many people around me


The following evening, Cy ran another simulated trade in which he appeared to earn $28,000, simply by doing exactly what Jessica told him to. He remained wary, but less so. Jessica encouraged him to invest $10,000, the minimum, she claimed, noting that the profits could help his family.

The next day, Cy texted Jessica with a proposal. He’d put up $5,000 if she would put up the other $5,000, and he would reimburse her after a successful trade. She rejected the idea.


    10/21/21


    Cy: What do you think? Too much for me to ask


    Jessica: NO, I can take you to make money, but I will not give you money. If I give you money, there is no need for you to make money.


    Cy: Not give.

    Cy: Will pay back after first profit so I’m reassured.


    Jessica: It's right to be careful the first time


    Cy: Exactly.


They went back and forth like this for a while, but in the end Cy told Jessica that while he was worried “that I will get cheated,” he agreed to put up the $10,000. “I don’t think men should be like this, don’t do it if you are worried,” she told him.

With Jessica’s help, Cy wired $10,000 to Coinbase. A few days later, Cy confided in Jessica again.


    10/24/21


    Cy: And Tuesday I will be deciding for my fathers life meeting with doctors

    Cy: That’s what was bothering me that I didn’t want to tell you earlier


    Jessica: OK看

    Jessica: Has happened, accept it yourself


    Cy: I had to do the same thing 8 years ago for my mom


    Jessica: OMG


    Cy: I miss her terribly


    Jessica: You have a hard time

    Jessica: Very sympathetic to your experience


    Cy: Remember I told I was born by accident

    Cy: I tried to figure out what I was even born.

    Cy: Why was I born

    Cy: I think I figured it out a few years ago


    Jessica: Your brothers and sisters

    Jessica: WHY


    Cy: I’m here to take care of all of them

    Cy: I’m the youngest

    Cy: And can pay the bills


    Jessica: You are very filial, so I am willing to help you

    Jessica: So you work harder to make money


    Cy: Even tho I was born here I always feel foreign

    Cy: Discriminated, self image issue, disrespect

    Cy: I don’t feel like I belong here


After some hiccups with setting up his new Coinbase account, Jessica told Cy to move his money to Crypto.com instead and instructed him to buy $10,000 worth of Ethereum. (Later on she would tell him to primarily buy a stablecoin, USDT, also known as “Tether.”) He then wired this money to a crypto address, per her instructions. This would, in turn, be used to buy gold futures through MetaTrader’s red-blue trading interface, she told him.

On October 27, with Cy’s real money now on the line, Jessica texted with “news” from “Uncle.”

Following her instructions to the letter, and sending her screenshots at each step of the way, Cy executed a trade, which appeared to nearly double his money. Cy didn’t completely understand what was happening — he thought he was buying gold futures — but he dutifully followed along, following her explicit instructions.

“I was shaking like crazy because of course I still had doubts,” Cy told Forbes over lunch at a Bay Area cafe. He didn’t touch his food. Sometimes, he looked on the verge of tears.

“I was taking a little bit of risk to better my family’s life and my siblings and I was trying to surprise my family,” he said. “My mission was trying to reduce the hours my wife was working and I was hoping I can help the standard of living for my siblings.”

Now convinced that this was a real thing, Cy was hooked.

“Let me transfer an additional $20k for tomorrow,” he wrote to Jessica on October 27 — approximately three weeks after her very first communication. “That’s [a] total of $30k. Then Monday add more. I never dealt with this much money before so it’s a little scary.”

“I told you all the ways I make money, do you doubt me?” she said at one point, a few days later.

By this point, Cy had already put in $50,000, and thought he had made a total profit of around $13,000. He could hardly believe his good luck.

MetaTrader, which offers licenses for its software, does enable legitimate trade by actual brokerages. But, according to GASO, MetaTrader also allows licensees to use a particular plug-in, known as Virtual Dealer, which can be used by scammers to “manipulate those market prices, and simulate account balances, profits or losses. Everything looks and feels real, but it’s all a fabrication.”

In Cy’s case, all the numbers he was seeing were fiction. Jessica either controlled the outcomes in the app, or was feeding Cy’s information to someone else who was. He would never see his money again.

Cy told Forbes that because he downloaded MetaTrader on the App Store, he presumed it was legitimate.

“The whole platform, the app that it was on Apple with 4.7 stars, everything seemed very realistic,” he said. “It was a trading market that was going up and down, it was something that I had never seen before.”

MetaQuotes, the company behind MetaTrader, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. TradeToolsFx, which makes the Virtual Dealer plug-in, was unable to provide comment at the time of publication. Google, which hosts MetaTrader on the Play Store, did not respond to a request for comment.

Apple spokesperson Adam Dema told Forbes the company is investigating complaints about MetaTrader, and will take additional action to protect App Store users if necessary.
“IT’S A NIGHTMARE”

Pig butchering is platform agnostic: It can occur via LinkedIn, via dating apps, or even, as was the case with Cy, through a random text message. But these scams follow the same form: An innocent chat turns into investment advice. Then, at some point, the pig is fattened — the victim is tricked into spending more — and then butchered, when the scammer absconds with the cash.

Anyone can be a target. In recent weeks, Forbes spoke to 12 people, a wide cross-section of victims, including Cy: an equities trader in Texas, a graduate student in Michigan, an engineer in California, a doctor in New York. Unlike the stereotypical scam victim, many of them are highly educated and digitally savvy. But that didn’t prevent them from losing huge amounts of money: Some lost tens of thousands, others hundreds of thousands, and still others, like Cy, were tricked into parting with over $1 million. Very few have been able to get any money back.

Pig butchering scams are a cousin of older-style online romance scams, which often have smaller-scale losses. While pig butchering sometimes uses romance as a tactic, scammers can also build other types of personal or professional relationships over time in order to convince their targets to invest more money.

CipherBlade, a cryptocurrency investigative analysis firm, estimates that worldwide losses from pig butchering scams are in the “tens of billions” of U.S. dollars in 2021 alone, adding that the presumed losses are “incredibly high.” (The closest type of scam the FTC tracks is romance scams, and losses from these scams reached an all-time high of $547 million in 2021.)

“Most people who lose funds to pig butchering scams don’t recover those funds in general,” Paul Sibenik, lead case manager at CipherBlade, told Forbes. He noted that the highest single loss that he’s aware of is “$20 or $30 million,” with the average loss in the “mid-to-high six figures.”

Andrew Frey, a forensic financial analyst with the United States Secret Service in the San Francisco Field Office, told Forbes that pig butchering is now a “super scam.”

“They took that up a notch in terms of sophistication in creating these apps with the perception that people are making money,” he said, referring to manipulated trading platforms, similar to the one that Cy was guided through.

    “They’re lured with all kinds of promises... and they are offered ridiculous amounts of money.”
    –Eldeen Husaini Hashim, the Malaysian ambassador to Cambodia

Many victims say they have reported their losses to their local police department, often to be told that there’s not much they can do to help, if they get a response at all. Frustrated by a seeming lack of public and forceful response from American authorities, some victims have banded together across Facebook groups and WhatsApp channels.

The largest advocacy group is a relatively new US and Singapore-based nonprofit called the Global Anti-Scam Organization. GASO has become an online clearinghouse of information: Volunteers write detailed reports of how the scams work, conduct their own independent research, connect victims to media outlets, and work closely with law enforcement to try to bring perpetrators to justice.

“The big picture is that there is this cottage industry in southeast Asia that is employing or coercing thousands, if not tens of thousands of people into doing online scams and it’s quite lucrative,” Jan Santiago, GASO’s deputy director told Forbes. Santiago, a soft-spoken 30-year-old Filipino immigrant living in Los Angeles, speaks from experience: He himself lost over $100,000 to this exact type of scam.

Eldeen Husaini Hashim, the Malaysian ambassador to Cambodia, echoed Santiago’s concerns, noting that the industrialization of pig butchering is putting a lot of young, usually Chinese-speaking people from his homeland in danger.

“They’re lured with all kinds of promises, working in customer service, or in hotels, or management, or entertainment and they are offered ridiculous amounts of money,” Hashim told Forbes. Many end up in criminal compounds. Some call the embassy for help — but getting access to a phone is rare, and many barely have any time to make a call before being found out.

“They manage to just have a few seconds — what they did was they just share location and they say: ‘help,’” he explained. “It’s a nightmare.”
“YOUR FATHER WANTS YOU TO BE BETTER”

Over the next few days, Jessica teased Cy with news of an upcoming “big market.” If he could pull together even more money, he could really cash in.

Cy began to liquidate stock, selling nearly $58,000 from his mutual fund portfolio, and then another $70,000 the following day. He used the proceeds to purchase more crypto, which he then transferred to a crypto address as Jessica instructed to prep for the arrival of the big market.

Meanwhile, as his father’s illness worsened, Cy turned to Jessica for emotional support.


    11/4/21


    Cy: I’ve been on the phone with drs. 🥺😥😭


    Jessica: You are busy with you, i just told you i'm doing


    Cy: He’s ….

    Cy: Dying


    Jessica: Do you miss me


    Cy: I do. But I’m also scare. I’m losing him


    Jessica: Are you ok?


    Cy: My daddy is dying


    Jessica: 😭😭😭


    Cy: I’m taking the rest of the day off and go to hospital.

    Cy: don’t worry about me.


    Jessica: Are you going to live in the hospital these few days


    Cy: I need to be strong for the rest of the family


    Jessica: I am worried about you


    Cy: I’ll be ok.

    Cy: Knowing you are with me is very comforting


    Jessica: I will accompany you


    Cy: Thank you, Jessica!


Several hours later Jessica messaged Cy with some urgent financial advice, pushing him to sell his stock.


    11/4/21


    Jessica: I suggest you sell the stock

    Jessica: yes


    Cy: That means no today and no tomorrow. So we wait for Sunday night?


    Jessica: Don't ignore this big market


The following morning, Jessica messaged Cy, reminding him to wire the proceeds of the sale to his cryptocurrency account.


    11/5/21


    Cy: I should be mourning not talking about money


    Jessica: No, your father wants you to be better


    Cy: Ok. Let me get up and do the wire now


    Jessica: OK


    Cy: Done.


    Jessica: You are very efficient, I feel relieved

    Jessica: You are going to the hospital, remember to eat


At this point, Cy was in for nearly $200,000 of his own money, and believed that Jessica had loaned him an additional $40,000. By evening, Jessica messaged with good news: “You now have 300,000 principal,” she wrote, adding, “if possible, try to reach 500,000.”

On November 7, Jessica alerted Cy to more news from her uncle. Cy dutifully followed her instructions, and again the MetaTrader app showed that he had made money.

“Am I dreaming?” Cy wrote. “60k in less than 10 mins!”

Jessica instructed Cy to repeat the trade, seemingly earning him another $31,000. She continued to prod him to invest even more money. Cy obliged, selling off family assets on the sly. He thought he’d profited around $90,000, a nearly 40% return.


    11/7/21


    Jessica: I'm serious about you


    Cy: I am too.

    Cy: I am quietly selling my Mom’s CD without my family knowing


    Jessica: I see


    Cy: 🙏🤭🤫

    Cy: and I already feel guilty about it.


    Jessica: My original intention was that you and your friends borrowed some, and when the big quotation passes, you will still give them


    Cy: i see. But I don’t want to get other people involved

    Cy: this is all a secret. I’m not telling anyone


Despite his continued efforts, Jessica kept urging him to borrow money from friends and family so he would have at least $1 million to invest in the next “big market.”


    11/11/21


    Cy: I am facing reality.


    Jessica: WHY?


    Cy: I can not push anymore

    Cy: 11/16 I will get another $20k from my friends


    Jessica: You can try to borrow money from the bank

    Jessica: Far away from 1M


    Cy: Too much to borrow.


    Jessica: How much can you borrow?

    Jessica: I can also help you figure out a solution

    Jessica: Best to reach 1M


    Cy: Before it was 500k. Now its 1m?


    Jessica: Buy once at 500K, buy multiple times at 1M​​

    Jessica: You still don't understand?


    Cy: Jessica. Remember what we talked about two days ago

    Cy: I can not push any further


    Jessica: You don't even know the big market


The following day, Cy had a revelation. He remembered that he still had a home equity line of credit, a type of financial loan available to homeowners that uses one’s own home as collateral. He withdrew $200,000 and transferred it to his cryptocurrency wallet in preparation for the coming “big market.”

He had now put in more than $440,000 of his own money.

“So do you see that I’m working hard?” he wrote to her.

When Cy’s father passed away on November 14, Jessica was among the first people he messaged. “Can I tell you something? But do not be upset,” he wrote. “I feel like dying. I feel like nothing matters anymore.” Still, less than 20 minutes later, he asked if there was any news about that “big market.”
“YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE”

As the days went on, and Cy grew more despondent, Jessica encouraged him to lean on her for emotional support.


    11/17/21


    Cy: lately, I have not been feeling happy at all. A piece of me died with my father


    Jessica: But you have me now


    Cy: ☺️


    Jessica: I hope I can be as important as your father


    Cy: Time will tell


When the “big market” finally arrived on November 18, Cy believed he was flush: His initial $440,000 investment had grown to $2.2 million.

But when that critical trade took place, which was supposed to bring huge profits, MetaTrader suddenly began showing his balance as negative $480,000. Cy couldn’t figure out why. Had the app crashed? Had he made a critical error?

“I lost all my money,” he messaged Jessica. “What should I do?” Jessica was quick to berate him (“If the principal is not enough, it cannot be supported to the profit point”), but also to reassure him.


    11/18/21


    Jessica: I'll bring you back.


    Cy: Yes please please please


    Jessica: Don't worry, trust me.


    Cy: Ok. All I have is you.


    Jessica: What you need to do now is to raise funds.


Soon, Cy liquidated more of his remaining assets, desperate to claw back from his losses.


    11/18/21


    Cy: I am trusting you. I have nothing else I can do


    Jessica: You have no faith in me?


    Cy: I keep telling myself

    Cy: If I can make 1.7m in two weeks we should be able to get it back especially your news are 100% accurate inside info


But by the following day, he tried to stave off Jessica by lying to her, claiming that his family was onto him.


    11/19/21


    Cy: I am hiding from family


    Jessica: why


    Cy: I trust and believe you. But want to let you know how much serious this has become for me

    Cy: They have found out and threaten to kill me or call the cops.

    Cy: Next Saturday.


    Jessica: How did they know?


    Cy: Sister found out in joint accts and question

    Cy: IF I don’t get money back, I don’t know what I will do

    Cy: You are my only hope

    Cy: I am sorry to everyone


    Jessica: We will earn it back


    Cy: Because the capital I’m getting is not mine. If I lose that, I will be in deeper hole

    Cy: The new money I am getting next week is not mine.


Again, Jessica told Cy the best way to quickly recover losses like these was to invest more money, and she urged him to borrow more funds and continue to trade with them.


    11/26/21


    Cy: how much confidence do you have to bring me back if I can around tomorrow at the funeral secretly for $150k

    Cy: Ask around secretly


    Jessica: hundred percent


    Cy: Really!!!


In the end, Cy managed to borrow $100,000 from a childhood friend and sold hundreds of thousands more of his own assets, all of which he promptly invested with Jessica’s guidance — an additional $600,000 on top of the $440,000 he’d already handed over.

On December 2, after investing the $600,000, Cy believed that his holdings had grown to $1.1 million, just about enough to offset his previous losses of $440,000. When he reached $1.8 million, Jessica said, she would finally teach him how to withdraw his funds.

But on December 3, after a purported trade, his MetaTrader once again showed a negative balance. Cy had been butchered for a second time.

Cy messaged Jessica:


    12/3/21


    Cy: I need help! Please.

    Cy: Please. What should I do?


    Jessica: Find money

. . .

    Cy: I am an honest hard working man.

    Cy: Lost my dad and now this

    Cy: Please


    Jessica: Go to the police to help you

    Jessica: Please don't call me


    Cy: Oh no!!!!!!!!!

    Cy: I do not want to die

    Cy: Lots of people are after me


    Jessica: I can't help you


Distraught, Cy drove to his childhood home in San Francisco. He’d lost over $1.04 million of real money — his initial $440,000 plus the second round of $600,000 — and was experiencing suicidal thoughts.

“I never wanted to harm anybody, it was just myself. I am to blame, it was my fault, I lost everything, I lost my parents’ money, I lost my daughter’s tuition, instead of reducing my wife’s work hours — now she has to work more,” he told Forbes. “I had this thought of ramming the car into a barrier and just let that be and let God decide whether I would live through this or I would die.”

When Cy texted Jessica a picture of himself from an ambulance on the way to a psychiatric ward, he was met with a cold reply.


    12/3/21


    Jessica: I advise you, since you have not made up your mind to die, just live well

    Jessica: Hurting yourself is a sign of incompetence


    Cy: They are keeping in hospital for suicide watch

    Cy: This is how it is: I have no more money, sister kicked me out of house, I am in hospital they afraid I might kill. With my situation, can you help at all. If there is nothing you can help, I know what I need to do for myself. Enjoy your life……….


    Jessica: There is nothing I can do to help.


She’d taken nearly all of his life savings.
“HIS FUNDS ARE UNRECOVERABLE”

That month, Cy filed a police report with his local police department, but he doesn’t have much hope they’ll recover his stolen money, let alone find Jessica and the people who stole it.

“They lack the resources, they lack the technology with the cryptocurrency,” he said. “[The police] took all my statements and tried to pass the case to the FBI.”

    “Curse you forever lose fortune, bad health, to you and your whole family for ruining my life!!!”
    –Cy

Shawn Bradstreet, the special agent in charge of the United States Secret Service’s San Francisco Field Office, is actively working on many pig butchering cases, including Cy’s. “Currently, his funds are unrecoverable, but we are still investigating his case,” he said by email.

Bradstreet says that the scale of pig butchering is “unprecedented right now,” which makes it challenging for law enforcement to keep up — especially since the perpetrators are largely, if not entirely, overseas. Forbes called and messaged the number Cy used to communicate with Jessica, and she did not respond to a request for comment.

For months, Cy kept sending Jessica desperate messages, pleading with her to return the money.

“Curse you forever lose fortune, bad health, to you and your whole family for ruining my life!!!” he wrote to Jessica on February 8, 2022.

Over the ensuing months, he continued to plead with her, even offering to help if she herself was being trafficked.

His final message to her was on June 1, 2022: “I have no money but there are people that can help you if you are doing this unwillingly.”

She did not respond.

Now, some three months later, Cy is doing his best to repair the rubble of broken family relationships and financial ruin he created. But it’s hard work with young kids. A GoFundMe established for him by a family member has raised only a tiny fraction of his losses. Cy’s debts haunt him daily; so does Jessica.

“For the kids, I try to bury my emotions. I’m fighting my demons every single day,” he said in a recent WhatsApp message. “Everyday I’m living in this nightmare.”

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or call or text the new three-digit code, 988.

UPDATE Sept. 28: This story has been updated to clarify how MetaTrader was used in relation to these scams.


Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2022/09/09/pig-butchering-crypto-super-scam/?sh=234871f3ec8e


Archive: https://archive.ph/Kb0g2

Offline ainat

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2022, 02:32:13 PM »
CNA Insider video: I Was Scammed Of $77k - Here’s What You Need To Learn From My Story



Han Ni fell for a love scam or pig butchering scam - a mash-up of romance and investment schemes run by Asia-based online scam syndicates.  (Are you the victim of a scam or know someone who is? Email us with your story: [email protected])

She reveals how scammers first developed an emotional intimacy by showing concern for her over weeks. They then brainwashed her into investing in a fake platform despite her doubts. They also told her not to tell her loved ones about the platform when instructed to borrow money from them.

“It’s not because I’m too dumb, it’s just because (the scammers) are too good,” said Han Ni.

Scammers often work in teams of four or five just to target one victim. They develop psychologically manipulative conversation scripts tailored to each victim through detailed analysis of the victim’s chat behaviour and social media. By sharing her story, Han Ni hopes to expose their tactics to prevent others from falling for them.

For help wherever you are, contact:
Global Anti-Scam Organization https://www.globalantiscam.org/contact
Global Anti-Scam Alliance https://www.gasa.org/contact-4

If you're in Singapore:
For scam-related advice, call the anti-scam hotline 1800 722 6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg.
To provide information on scams, call the police hotline 1800 255 0000, or submit online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness.

Also watch:
Asia's Tinder Swindlers: Exposing Love Scam Rings In Cambodia: https://youtu.be/ZacChEz3Am8
How To Tell if You're Being Scammed: Love Scammers' Tactics Exposed: https://youtu.be/rwiF0wtG2ec
Inside Taiwan’s Phone Scam Rings: https://youtu.be/th2-6t-488w



Source: youtube. com/watch?v=LOPz4_ryviE

Offline ainat

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2023, 06:24:16 PM »
FBI warning of cryptocurrency fraud and online scams



Transcript
The cryptocurrency industry is starting
off the year amid growing fraud concerns
from failed digital coin exchanges to
online scams scnn's Mike Valerio shows
us law enforcement and federal
Regulators now have new warnings
get ready for another crypto roller
coaster ride this 2023 the FBI and other
agencies are raising concerns about an
online scam called Pig butchering we're
not talking about what's going on on
farms we're talking about a
cryptocurrency investment scam that is
sweeping the country
it is costing Americans billions of
dollars in losses authorities are urging
you to be careful when getting random
texts or messages through social media
with invitations to start investing in
cryptocurrencies when you finally ask
for your money guess what your friend
has disappeared it comes as several
recent crypto related headlines sent a
chill through an already anxious
Community First Sam bankman freed the
founder of failed crypto exchange
platform called FTX pleaded not guilty
this month to federal fraud and
conspiracy charges linked to his
company's meltdown then the SEC charged
six people in an investment scheme
called coindeel that raised more than 45
million dollars on false promises of
access to blockchain technology and also
this month U.S Regulators have issued
their first joint statement warning
Banks and others about the risks of
fraud volatility and poor risk
management in the crypto world so what
can you do to avoid becoming a victim
law enforcement officials say scammers
usually Target their victims by sending
Mass next hoping somebody takes the bait
perpetrators of these crimes have been
trained in techniques of uh
psychological deception in techniques to
gain people's trust Mike Valerio kitv 4
Island news.

Offline ainat

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Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2024, 05:32:01 PM »
Oct 2024: Scam: Inside Asia's criminal network

Enlarged version




Transcript of the video:
"This is a story about corruption and
greed yeah I mean it's a billion dollar
industry a secretive vast sometimes
deadly Enterprise where failure to meet
targets can end in
torture the level of torture that these
people receive
is worse than any horror movie that's
ever been we're going to take you to the
very heart of a criminal Network going
under cover inside Southeast Asia's scam
centers for the very first
time we won't have any problems with
police it's okay an exclusive
investigation into a gated world worth
billions of dollars there are countless
Financial victims worldwide
but this isn't a story about them how
did you feel duping
people we're heading um a little bit
south of MOT into an area that we know
as Tai Chang um it's commonly known also
as Mountain View um for us it's it's one
of the worst compounds that exists in
terms of um human rights violations
abuses AB absolute torture of their
victim judana is on a mission he's in
Thailand over the river is Myanmar where
thousands of people are working in
prison-like compounds known as scam
centers their job to defraud people
online but they're not all criminals
some are trafficked tortured thrust into
cyber
slavery what we often hear about is this
black room um or this dark room and uh
it's essentially let's say a windowless
dark room where the victims are taken in
they're often chained with their um
hands handcuffed above their heads
hanging from uh a ceiling uh they are
then not given food um they're tasered
they're unable to sleep how do you go
about getting people out the reality is
the majority of them have to pay
exorbitant ransoms their families sell
everything judah's the first hope for
those fleeing recently he's been getting
a lot of frantic calls many Trace back
to a little known compound called Tai
Chong you can see it just across the
border I think it's a good idea if we
just walk I want you to actually see and
experience the gravity of what it is
that we're talking about about because
this compound has been built within the
last like 18 months and you're talking
about as far as you can see this way all
the way to the green roof building there
and you can see land being cleared
behind it which only means
[Music]
expansion two things I'm really struck
by is just how vast it is but also it's
there in plain sight so close to this
tie border yeah you can almost Reach Out
And Touch it right and yet it's
Untouchable you can't get in and nobody
can get out is this in fact the place
the world should be
watching absolutely this compound is
without a doubt the worst it is
essentially hell on
Earth the scam compound are often run by
Chinese Mafia supported by militias in
Myanmar those who don't generate enough
money for their bosses can be brutally
punished the UN estimates hundreds of
thousands of people are working inside
these fraud factories across southeast
Asia the types of scams that are being
run inside the scam centers are often
focused on dating and relationships they
use many platforms but behind most of
them it's gaining some kind of trust
with with somebody in another country by
pretending to be someone you're not and
by gaining that trust encourage them to
join some kind of investment or
cryptocurrency investment and to build
on that investment and to build on that
trust until eventually you've exploited
them from all of their
money the notorious KK Park is one of
many compounds that was able to grow and
prosper along a lawless Border in a
country wrestling with Civil
[Music]
War these three men have just
left three guys is just leave kk4 so I
take them take them leave and send to
immigration but imig Sammy is a
volunteer trying to stop human
trafficking 2 years ago if you want to
leave KK Kang you have to pay about uh
30,000 to 50,000 us to leave how much
did it cost
them
2,500 us do not not not really
high but to really understand the
current Dynamics you have to cross from
Thailand into Myanmar where conflict
rages and cyber scans
Thrive we've been granted rare access to
yti New City in Coco a sprawling
Frontier of compounds and casinos but
the city management wants to show us
this is a normal town with nothing to
[Music]
hide this feels like a little China
every everywhere you look there are
signs in Mandarin a lot of the people on
the streets and in the shops are Chinese
too it's almost like a vast Outpost and
yet it's one we know that Beijing in
part is wrestling
with along its border with myamar in the
North China has cracked down on the
scamming industry but it's money from
the chines underworld that still drives
it yti says that's not what's going on
here suspicion though is High phones are
checked and we're escorted everywhere
y's chairman wants to talk
you say you're just the property
developer but you do profit from these
compounds do you think that it's your
responsibility to crack down more
forcefully do you accept that scamming
has gone on in yti City in compounds and
that some people have been trafficked
here
[Music]
there's been so much pressure on making
sure that the human trafficking side has
been snuffed out and that there's no
longer the sense of abuses or hiring
underage children the the role in which
yatti and and schoko has played seems to
be benefiting the anti-human trafficking
movement
there is a public effort to combat
forced labor here but y's founder Seri
Jang was only recently sanctioned by the
UK government accused of links to scam
centers and human trafficking one
rescuer also told us this building is
currently home to a significant scam
operation the bars there to prevent
people from
jumping they clearly want to show the
world world that they're more open now
that working conditions here are better
the problem is we can't get into the
compounds to see what the reality of
life is like
inside we know that fraud factories
exist across the region but we need to
work harder to get a closeup look so
we've been tracking one key area in
Cambodia near the border with Vietnam
it's called bevet and it's home to some
shocking
stories scammers rarely talk on camera
but this man who we're calling pum dry
has agreed to lift the lid on a murky
World he's taii but until recently he
was a romance scammer in bavette
targeting lonely people to invest
stealing their hearts and then their
money fore
[Music]
[Music]
in Cambodia illegal gambling love scams
and crypt fraud are booming it can be
lucrative but with rampant growth comes
brutal
targets pji became a scammer by Falling
victim himself to a romance scam lured
by a Thai recruiter who's now under
investigation he was passed around
compounds until one fateful day he was
accused of
stealing fore
we want to find the compound pum dry
nearly died in but it won't be
easy they're highly secure places hard
to get in even harder to get
out here around 40 Vietnamese people
flee the Golden Phoenix Casino hoping
they can swim back to Vietnam
Ben who's from the UK says he also
worked there until I was in there I had
no idea I've been in Cambodia a long
time now up until the point where where
I was in the compound I never heard of a
compound before I never heard of a scam
Factory um it was like a whole whole
different world just just appeared in
front of me I had an alocation with
another staff member
um and then I I got punished so uh
called into the office handcuffed to a
chair and uh security team was called in
and I was I was uh electrocuted with
with tasers for maybe five
minutes we decide the only way we'll
expose what's really happening in these
heavily guarded compounds is by
pretending we want to work in them
we're on our way to a building where we
know 2 years ago nearly
250 people were rescued we've been told
that a scam operation is still going on
there so we're going to go and see what
we can find
out we walk in posing as people looking
for jobs online work online online
online online online there's a heavy
security presence steady stream of
workers passed through a metal
detector will we be okay the
police Rescuers have told us about
scammers fleeing
here but we can't get any further
without an
[Music]
appointment scam centers are almost
impenetrable constantly changing names
and locations but we want to keep going
we've heard bevet is the new Hub it's on
the border with Vietnam a fortress-like
city we're going to try to
infiltrate it feels kind of Otherworldly
being here everywhere we look there are
gambling adverts and these huge casinos
and then behind them these mysterious
buildings and seemingly very little
else down a dusty road we find the
building where pum dry says he worked
was detained and
fled foree
[Music]
doctors eventually helped him escape and
return to
Thailand after 2 days we have a
lead we've been reaching out to
recruiters today and we've just had a
call from one who says they're willing
to meet to discuss possible works of
we're going to see what they have to
say they are surprisingly unguarded and
unfiltered the scam Pig butchering
tricking victims to Fork out more and
more money before going in for the kill
it's big business some scammers sign up
willingly on the promise of big salaries
and bonuses what kind of work
maybe maybe mod and
the and the is still and the Sal here uh
more
800 uh all the same like as to people to
investment with the kill the romance SC
who who is the best country to
Har bangadesh and take money from that
because uh they like nobody gets
arrested but the police won't stop
anybody uh the police yeah no I I never
see the police coming F because I I I
think like maybe the monitor of theal
maybe
take and all
[Music]
the that night they arranged for us to
do a job interview
we're met at a casino and driven to a
compound we're then asked to sit down
with a man they call the boss the head
of HR and two other employees they admit
what they do is illegal from the
off you you have to know what job we
have here yeah can you explain that
[Music]
we are doing the US M oh
us
more you see if you get the B Cent you
get the more commission oh yeah and how
long how many days a week
uh s days a week
24 how much does the person that earns
the most
SC do you teach do you train here or no
training yeah have training here this
your master if you come to work your
master he is the guy with experience to
kill the client put like billion of what
kind of script do you follow what how to
win the
man how to c in the first day in the
second day in the third day or
he like why did you tell the DI
the the
you asking uh what problem is why you
with the girl the man can tell you the
in the
thinking you you already
[Music]
grow after a lengthy chat the team
agrees to show us the
[Music]
accommodation next we're exposed to
something we thought we'd never y the
highly secretive scam
[Music]
rooms some vom people most are Chinese
people all like
[Music]
this we see scammers with lots of phones
conducting multiple conversations with
victims online
[Music]
it's hard to know if other workers got a
guided tour but it revealed more than we
ever
expected it was very strange seeing that
world up close I was surprised at just
how organized and structured it felt you
had these rows and rows of people all
focused on ultimately deing people
around the
world now
across the border in Thailand the cost
of the industry is
crushing Cher says his brother Chia died
falling from this compound in Cambodia
he believes he was pushed
[Music]
[Music]
there is a vast range of scam centers
and scammers
some greed driven some
desperate some deeply
[Music]
Sinister prosecutions though are rare
China has started to chase some of the
worst
offenders Cambodia claims it has
two but the industry still booms in
plain sight with new compounds
constantly
emerging what started as a regional
crime is now a global trafficking
crisis with millions of
[Music]
victims we reached out to those
responsible for the compounds featured
in this documentary we also contacted
the Cambodian government none of them
responded to our requests for comment."