What is a “pig butchering” romance scam? Here’s how they work:

Why do you get random text messages all
day long saying, “Hey, did I leave my
shoes at your house?” Or, “Hey, do ribs
sound good for dinner?” Or, “Hey, your
your phone number’s in my phone, but I’m
not sure who is who this is. Who is it?”
You probably get text messages. If
you’re on um Telegram, you probably get
Telegram messages all day long like I do
with those. So, what are those? That is
someone trying to start a pig butchering
scam on you. So, what is a pig
butchering scam? Uh, a pig butchering
scam is a scam where the scam artist
fattens you up over the course of four
months before they finally slit your
throat. Here’s how that works. So, first
of all, they constantly blast messages
looking for lonely people. That’s the
goal. Find lonely people that will
respond to anything. And they try
everything. You know, again, every
random message you can imagine that is
intended to find a lonely person and
elicit any type of response. As soon as
they get any type of response on it,
they start building rapport. And it’s
always pretends to be a woman, but it’s
always a guy on the other end. So, as
people say, if you get one of these, you
know, if a if a beautiful woman reaches
out to you, block him because it’s
always a him on the other side,
regardless of what pictures they’re
sending. Um, but anyway, so they’re
trying to get any sort of response. If
they get any sort of response, they’ll
typically follow up with a picture and
it’s typically a picture of an Asian
woman and then they strike up a
conversation and in the course of the
four months where they try to build
rapport, they’re sending pictures.
They’re sending um, and I’m not saying
like racy pictures, it could just be
normal pictures, but they’re trying to
start a romance and start a connection.
They’re trying to fill that gap that
lonely people have of for connection
with the goal over time of learning, you
know, what assets that person has. So,
what they’re trying to do is they’re
trying to get the person comfortable
with them. They’re trying to learn um,
you know, they’re they’re showing off a
lifestyle that is, you know,
unattainably lavish as compared to the
person they’re chatting with.
Inevitably, they’re they’re trying to
get the person to ask, “How do you
afford this lifestyle?” at which point
they say, “Oh, my brother or my cousin
or my uncle does cryptocurrency trading.
He’s actually made a ton of money and
you know, I put $10,000 in and I made a
million dollars and that’s why I’m, you
know, sending you pictures of me on
these yachts and, you know, all these
fancy cars and whatever else.” So
they’re trying to build in the course of
the pig butchering, they’re trying to
build rapport with the person and
they’re trying to show off their
lifestyle so that the person, the
victim, which is supposed to be you,
asks about their lavish lifestyle, in
which case they’ll they’ll bring up in
passing that there’s this investment
opportunity that’s worked out really
well for them. Then they’ll ask you if
you want to be part of it. Again, this
all takes place this grooming process
typ typically play takes place over the
course of like four months. Um, but in
that process, they try to figure out
what assets you have, um, all the
different, you know, and then they start
promoting, you know, all the different
ways you’re going to get rich on
everything they’re doing and all that
sort of stuff. So, what happens over
time then, give me one second here. Uh,
what happens over time then is they try
to figure out what assets you have
because they’re going to try to then
invite you to put each of those assets
into their scheme. So, it’s going to
start with them finding out that, oh,
you can borrow against your 401k for my
investment thing and you have so much in
your savings account and you have so
much in your, you know, retirement and
you have so much and all this. And over
time, what they’re going to do is
they’re going to invite you to put that
into their scam. And the whole time
they’re trying to build rapport. They’re
trying to build romance. They’re trying
to build basically trying to get you to
believe that you have met the person of
your dreams. They’re living a the
lifestyle you’ve always wanted. They’re
trying to meet every need you have, you
know, as a lonely person or somebody who
is getting scammed. And in that they’re
said, you know, the login they’re giving
you to the supposed trading platform
where you see your returns. Every time
you put money in it, you see your money
show up. And then you immediately see
your money start to grow. And it’s
formulated where the the the amount of
money that it shows that you have, it
always goes up and down. And it always
goes up and down enough to lull you into
believing it’s real because sometimes it
goes down but over time it always goes
way up. And so you know you’re you know
you put in $1,000 it turns into $10,000
within 2 weeks. Then you put in $10,000
it turns into $150,000 within another
two weeks. And so the whole process is
them trying to milk you of your last
dollar. So typically these scams will
then go into I’d really want to come
visit you but I need a visa. You know
can you give me money for my travel? you
know, the the plane tickets are going to
be $7,000. You know, can you send me
money for that? Basically, again, it’s
called pig butchering because they’re
fattening you up for the slaughter every
step of the way. So, the goal is through
that entire fourmonth grooming process
is to then is to build the rapport,
figure out how much assets you have, get
as much of your assets in their scam as
possible. And then the final piece of
the puzzle is where you know they
pretend they want to come visit. They
pretend they want to meet you and all
this sort of stuff and to try to get the
last of your dollars and then once it
becomes clear that they have literally
the last penny. I mean when they’re like
hey you know I’m on the plane but I have
to pay for customs. Can you send me the
last $50? As soon as you are completely
absolutely broke 100% you don’t have a
penny left. there’s nothing, you know,
nothing more to, you know, to take from
you. Then they either go dark on you or
they get mad at you or they break the
relationship off and pretend that it
was, you know, your fault all the time
and you did something wrong and you lost
your money, it was your fault. So, it’s
absolutely heartbreaking. I mean, people
commit suicide after this whole thing
goes through. I mean, it’s just
heartbreaking the insanity of what these
scammers put people through. A lot of
this is is, you know, almost all of it
comes out of Asia. um I forget the major
countries like Myanmar or something like
that. Countries with poor rule of law
where they can get away with running
these you know scams at a large scale
for a long time and uh you know efforts
have been made to like cut off their
internet access to these huge compounds.
A lot of the labor that is used is uh
human traffic labor. So it’s people that
are promised you know a good job in
Thailand. Then they get to Thailand and
are told they have to go to Myanmar or
wherever it is or Burma or whatever.
Then they go there and they find out
after they’re situated that instead of a
call center job doing tech support,
they’re actually going to be a scammer.
And then if they’re if they don’t scam
enough and meet their quota, they’re
they’re beaten and they’re not allowed
to leave. And they have huge quotas like
if you can scam people out of $2
million, then you can earn your freedom.
And the whole thing is just absolutely
insane. But they have massive compounds
that look like college campuses where
there’s huge perimeter fences that trap
everybody in where all the people who’ve
been promised good paying jobs, you
know, in call centers are actually being
forced to scam. And you know, a lot of
the that’s what’s happening now. Not all
the people who are sending these text
messages are forced labor, but a lot of
it is forced labor. Um, so anyway, it’s
it’s a just an absolute bizarre, toxic,
horrible thing that all these people are
caught up in on both the side of being
forced to scam, but obviously the
recipient of these scams and the rest of
us who have to put up with getting tons
of random text messages and messages on
Telegram all day long, you know, with
all just, you know, hey, uh, I thought
we were meeting today. Where are you? I
mean, it’s just anything that’s going to
elicit any sort of response. So that’s
what pig butchering is. They’re trying
to find victims who are lonely, strike
up a conversation, build a romantic
connection, expose their amazing
lifestyle,
you know, have the person want to be to
have the same lifestyle, invite them to
be part of this cryptocurrency trading
or whatever it is, and then slowly milk
that person for every dollar they
possibly have. And then again, it’s
called pig butchering because they
fatten you up by taking your money every
step of the way. And then finally, when
they have every last penny you have,
slit your throat by either dumping you
or walking away or engineering a fight
in a fallout or, you know, taking away
access to the online platform that was
showing you you were rich even though it
was all fake all the time. Just all that
sort of stuff. So, uh, anyway, that’s
why all of us are getting these random
messages all day long. Don’t fall for
it. And most importantly, educate your
loved ones. If you have a family member
or an extended family member that’s, you
know, lonely or they’ve lost a loved one
or something like that, they are
especially susceptible to big pig
butchering scams because the average
person’s just, you know, if you’re in a
happy, healthy relationship, you’re
probably not going to strike up, you
know, you’re not going to respond to
these uh text messages. But if you’re
sitting home alone with nothing to do,
feeling lonely, it’s very tempting, I
imagine, to respond to some of these
messages. Um, so anyway, uh, educate
your loved ones. What is pig butchering?
I will include in the first comment here
a link to Natalie Brunell’s interview.
Uh, send that to your loved ones and
spread the word so people don’t fall
fall for these scams. And, uh, but check
the first comment and I will post a link
to Natalie Brunell’s uh, most recent
podcast where she covered it. Thanks.