The Pig Butchering Scam!

Every year, people around the world lose millions of dollars to a sophisticated scam known as “the pig butchering romance scam”.

The scam takes its name from the victims, who the scammers call “pigs” that they "fatten up" before slaughter. It usually begins with a text message that appears to be a wrong number. People who respond are lured into a long conversation with a good-looking and wealthy stranger who eventually offers to teach them how to make money with crypto investments. The investments are (of course) fake, and once victims send enough of their money, the scammers disappear. Victims frequently lose their life savings, and often the crime goes unreported because the victim is so embarrassed by what happened. A Kansas banker embezzled almost $50 million dollars from his bank as part of a pig-butchering scam, leading to the bank's failure.

In the bestselling book - Number Go Up by Zeke Faux, it was revealed that the people sending the messages are frequently victims themselves. In today's video we explore how the scam works and why cryptocurrencies like tether are to blame for the huge scale of this crime.

Patrick's Books:

Ways To Support The Channel

Patrick Boyle On Finance Podcast:

Join this channel to support making this content:

[jiiyl]

About the third most troubling thing I learned from this video was that the Pig Butcherer scamers seem to provide much better customer support than my bank.

[whammykablammy]

I'm so Midwestern I thought this is one someone asks to split the cost on butchering a pig and then you never get the meat, lol

[richardewels]

My pig butcher was Emily, 33 year old devorcee, ran her old company, 3 cars and a nice house. She insisted on a video call seemly to prove she was legit and photo's of herself. I had never heard of pig butchering but I knew a supposedly wrong number call from a very attractive Chinese woman who suddenly wanted to be my best friend was suspicious. Googled this experience and realised what was going on. These people have no souls or conscience. I didn't lose any money but would love to see these thieves held accountable.

[MikeGaruccio]

It’s kind of wild that law enforcement is just like “oh well, I don’t understand this thing, guess it’s impossible to track” and just ignores that the ledger of transactions is literally publicly available to anyone who cares to look.

[TheFakeyCakeMaker]

My husband's friend got him involved with it. We were in such a bad way that he was excited to "invest" to help us. I told him that it was a scam. Thankfully he listens to me. He put in £100 because we reckoned we could afford to lose it. He watched his returns grow and of course when he tried to cash out, nothing. His friend had laughed at him for putting in so little and he'd roped in many others, they all lost thousands.

[stevens]

I was in Viet Nam last year and people were talking about this a lot "Don't go to Cambodia for work, it's a scam, blah blah"

[MechMK]

I know someone who was once blackmailed by an ex regarding nude pictures of himself. When he confessed to me that she had threatened to post his pictures online, I told him quite directly that no one really cared what his genitals looked like. We've all seen them before, his are not special either. Luckily he did get a lawyer involved soon after.

[mbe]

My friends Mom fell for this, she has dimentia, and was signing up on Plenty of Fish, and it was a hybrid Romance/Pig Butchering Scam.... they took her for so so SO damn much money, I don't even want to say. But it cost her, her son, and her ex-husband, who she had a joint account and a line of credit with, so so much trouble and loss. They might even lose their house and business... brutal stuff. These people are sickening.

[reid]

This has nothing to do with the video, but when I was in Cambodia, one time I was awoken at 3:00 in the morning by a woman screaming and gurgling as she died in a small village, and it completely terrified me. When others started getting up a couple hours later, I told them what I had heard, and my host said with a straight face "no, we just live next to a pig butcher who starts really early, and pigs sound like that when killed" and it absolutely haunts me to this day, and the phrase "pig butchering" gives me PTSD.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk

[kristiangustafson]

The human trafficking aspect of this is heart-breaking. The cost to victims is heart-breaking. The scam bosses have no souls.

[BTCSE_AtharvaTrivedi]

Horrifying to see people being forced to run a scam

[w.urlitzer]

The scammer farms are now stationed in Myanmar. Chinese and others are getting lured to Thailand, kidnapped and then moved to these farms.

[tonynewman]

I only trust random messages from Nigerian princes. Anything else must be a scam.

[tristanpiano]

I just got this last week. They have really gotten lazy. I told them so was a 12 year old boy with a bmx and they still kept it going.

[ohioplayer-blem]

Those wrong number text messages come to my phone. I make them listen to stories about my cats for weeks till they stop texting back.

[vladyslavgalchenko]

“He started with 100usd, which converted into 81 tether - because - you know - crypto transactions costs. “ this phrase is gold

[zg-it]

I played along with one of these scams on a dating app, the so-called girl was from Singapore but she happened to live in detroit. The neighborhood that she randomly guessed that she was from was probably one of the worst neighborhoods you could live in. There are no immigrants from Singapore living in that neighborhood, there's hardly anybody living in that neighborhood. I won't even drive through that neighborhood.

[sosilos]

I'm always amazed how Patrick's voice is seemingly monotone and could be perceived as boring but it's far from true. I'm hooked every time and founding myself glued to the screen with 100% focus!!!

[hellaradusername]

I've got a couple of these, at first they're like "Patricia, are we still meeting for tennis tomorrow?" and the plausibility goes out the window once you tell them they've texted the wrong number because who keeps going like that?

[aippli]

I remember in 2020 seeing my friend . And she told me she was dating a guy online. Because it was Covid it made perfect sense that they couldn’t meet up. But when she told he asked her to invest in his online crypto, I called bs.I told her not to do it. I wish she listened.