According to a victim of the pig slaughtering scam, “I never thought it could happen to me because I use tech. I’ve written software.”
Silicon Valley’s lonely hearts are reportedly falling victim to a wave of “pig slaughtering” crypto scams via dating apps.
An investigator for the cybersecurity firm Sift discovered that one out of every twenty people who approached her on dating apps in San Francisco was part of the scam.
Pig slaughtering, also known as butchering, is a type of scam in which an individual or group works for weeks or months to create a phony relationship with the victim, metaphorically fattening them up. The ultimate goal is to convince the victim to invest in cryptocurrency by using a spoofed version of a legitimate website or by transferring funds to a shady wallet address.
Scammers frequently shift conversations from dating apps or social media to encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp, putting in countless hours of daily conversation to make their fake personas appear realistic, without ever meeting in person in most cases.
The San Francisco Examiner reported on June 2 that two relatively tech-savvy individuals, referred to as Cy and R for anonymity, lost a total of $2.5 million to the scam. Both are now members of the Global Anti Scam Organization’s online support group, which has “at least two or three new members” every week.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), such incidents are part of a “rising trend” in the area.
In April, the FBI issued a general warning about crypto-romance scams and pig slaughtering, noting that its Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 4,300 complaints in 2021, resulting in losses totaling $429 million. According to the report, the scam first appeared in China in late 201, but has since spread to the United States.
R’s case is noteworthy because she is an IT manager from the Bay Area who lost approximately $1.3 million to the scam after being approached via LinkedIn.
Despite her knowledge of computer technology, R stated that the scammer’s professional profile managed to gain her trust by listing the scammer as an alumnus of the same top tech university from which she graduated in China.
After the conversation moved to WhatsApp, the scammer worked for a month before finally convincing R to invest in cryptocurrency through a shady website that stole her money.
“I never thought it could happen to me because I use tech. I’ve written software.”
Cy, a real estate analyst, lost $1.2 million in two months and was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts.
“I lost more than money.” “I lost my self-esteem,” Cy admitted. “I have ruined the lives of my family.”
According to the Global Anti-Scam Organization, Silicon Valley workers are increasingly falling victim to these scams due to overconfidence in their technological abilities, loneliness as a result of the pandemic, and a desire to gain crypto exposure.
