Main => International Scams => Topic started by: ainat on October 02, 2021, 03:28:24 PM
Title: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: ainat 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
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: greentara 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."
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: greentara on February 20, 2022, 05:35:49 PM
Behind the Pig Butchering Scams (online relationship-investment frauds)
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: greentara 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
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: ainat on August 27, 2022, 06:02:02 PM
How To Tell if You're Being Scammed: Love Scammers' Tactics Exposed
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: ainat 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.
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: ainat 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.
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: ainat 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.
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: ainat 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
Title: Re: Love Scam: 'Pig butchering' (Sha Zhu Pan)
Post by: ainat 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.