Real-Life Example of Pig Butchering Scam
How a simple “Hello” text led to weeks of talking to a fraudster
When my husband told me that he got a hello text from an unknown phone number, I immediately told him it was a pig butchering scam. We continued to talk to the fraudster for two weeks to gain more knowledge and get a real-life example of the scam.
Pig butchering fraud has been gaining a lot of attention in the last few years. It’s different from a simple cryptocurrency or romance scam because a fraudster spends more time than usual to gain the trust and friendship of a victim. They often show their lavish lifestyles trying to convince targets that they know a lot about business and investing, and they can teach victims how to become rich.
The communication usually follows a pattern of a wrong number, conversation, weeks of regular texts with the exchange of personal information, and then a recommendation of a trading platform to get cryptocurrency. The initial investments are usually small and bring amazing results. The fraudsters will encourage victims to put in more money with time, but when victims will want to take their money back, they just disappear.
So, what does a pig butchering scam look like in real life? Talking to a fraudster showed us how they progressively involve victims into believing that they are real people.
A victim gets a “hello” text and an explanation for a wrong number, then starts a conversation. Our fraudster introduced themselves as Bella Aziz from Toronto. She was from Malaysia, 32 years old and single.
They share a lot of personal details immediately. Our fraudster was a shareholder in a jewelry store, and liked “shopping, traveling, reading, some outdoor activities”. They first told us that they were a student of economics and finance at the University of Toronto, and complained about how hard it was, but then explained they actually weren’t a student anymore because they were 32 years old.
They will try to switch to Telegram or WhatsApp because it’s easier to stay there without proper oversight of social media moderators. The fraudster told us that the phone number used for texts was only for business purposes.
They text victims every day with more personal details, flirt, quotes, photos exchange
They build an image of being really good at business or investing and start to talk about money using their achievements and knowledge
They make a move suggesting to start trading and share a perfect platform for that
Deeper Look:
We didn’t invest any money and the fraudster didn’t want to continue the conversation. Their phone number used for texts was deleted.
The person in question had issues with the English language and would confuse themselves with lies from time to time. They often complained that they would receive messages from us when they were sleeping, implying a time difference.
The images of the woman and her life shared in the conversation were stolen from different sources – travel blogs and social media. For example, an exact photo was shared on a website with travel reviews describing a jewelry store in Hong Kong.
The phone number used in the text communication is based in the US, located in Newark, Delaware and, according to reverse phone record websites, belongs to 84 years old person. The WhatsApp phone number is a VOIP phone registered in Florida.
The trading platform website doesn’t contain any contact information or any data about the company that owns it. The website itself was created in May 2023, with an IP location in Hong Kong.
The case was a classic example of pig butchering, and anyone who would try to invest any money into their platform would lose them immediately.
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