Pig-killing is a relatively new type of long-running financial scam. In this scam, the "pig" refers to those who are scammed, while the "pig killing" refers to the scammer who will convince the duped to invest an increasingly large amount on a so-called forex platform or cryptocurrency trading platform. These fake platforms are designed to look like the real thing, and can convince victims that their investments are earning amazing returns - until the scammers disappear with the invested money.

The "killing pig pan" scam is often committed by professional gangs

Victims often lose a lot, so the scam is so lucrative that it is practiced on a large scale in places like Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. At the same time, the issue of human trafficking complicates enforcement efforts. Human rights advocates say many of the scammers are victims themselves, lured to Southeast Asian countries by the prospect of high-paying jobs and then forced to engage in pig killing scams, sometimes under threat of violence. Often, their passports and mobile phones are confiscated on arrival.

Jan Santiago, deputy director of the Global Anti-Scam Organization (GASO), said the scams were conducted "on a massive, industrial scale - it's like the scammers are working in a factory that specializes in fraud." He estimates that the scam costs billions of dollars worldwide.

Anyone could be a target for a pig-killing dish

"Pig-killing" is platform-neutral: it can happen through social platforms, dating apps, or maybe even a random text message, but the form of these scams is the same: The mere chat evolved into investment advice, and then at some point the pig was fattened - the victim was tricked into investing more and more money - and the pig was killed, i.e., the scammer made off with the cash.

Anyone could be a target for a pig-killing dish. Forbes interviewed 12 people, a broad group of victims that also included a Texas stock trader, a Michigan graduate student, an engineer in California and a doctor in New York. Unlike typical scam victims, many of them are highly educated and even digitally savvy. But that didn't stop them from losing huge amounts of money: some lost tens of thousands of dollars, some hundreds of thousands, and still others millions. Very few people get their money back.

The amount of fraud is huge and difficult to recover

Crypto research and analysis firm CipherBlade estimates that in 2021 alone, global losses due to "pig-killing" will amount to "tens of billions" of dollars. By comparison, the closest type of fraud tracked by the FTC was relationship fraud, which hit an all-time high of $547 million in losses in 2021.

Pig-killing is a cousin of old-fashioned online dating scams, where losses are usually on a smaller scale. While "pig-killing pans" sometimes use romantic relationships as a tactic, scammers can also form other types of personal or professional relationships over time to convince their targets to invest more money.

Many victims said they had reported the incident to their local police station, but even when they got a response, they were often told there was nothing the police could do.

At present, the division of labor of fraud gangs is becoming more and more refined, sitting across from you and chatting may be a huge industrial chain, including human design, psychological principles, professional script killing and firewood tactics, they understand the human nature, the right medicine, many highly educated intellectuals have not been spared, such cases we have reported a lot.

Everyone has cognitive boundaries, and we really shouldn't overestimate our cognitive limits. When encountering the intention to operate a very rich "actor's self-cultivation" around you to create a tailored hoax, most ordinary people really will be confused, unconsciously fell into the scene set by the liar. FX110 network special reminder: the network world, friends need to be extra careful, do not easily believe some people's rhetoric, with people who have never met, never talk about money, keep this article, you can shield the vast majority of network fraud.

Source: FX110