Understanding Pig Butchering Scams
Many people have heard the term ”pig butchering,” but not all understand the true horrors behind it. The term is bad enough. It originated in China and is a metaphor for what the fraudsters do: fatten up (befriend) a pig (the victim) before the slaughter (taking their money).
Let me start by explaining the scam itself and how it often works.
It begins with the fraudster contacting the victim via text, social media or dating sites. Sometimes they address the victim by name immediately. Other times they send a message intended for someone else, such as, “Hey, you left your yoga mat at the gym.” When the victim questions it, the fraudster claims it was a wrong number but continues the conversation.
The fraudster invests time in getting to know the victim. Many even pretend to be in a long-distance romantic relationship, and months can go by before money is mentioned.
Talk of finances begins when the scammer mentions successful cryptocurrency investments, eventually suggesting that the victim try investing as well. Once the victim has invested, the fraudster shares a link to a fake crypto trading platform where the victim can watch the investment appear to grow.
Buoyed by these apparent returns, the victim continues investing. The scammer presents "one-time only” opportunities, ”insider” tips and heavily implies that their friendship or relationship is dependent on the investment.
When the victim asks about withdrawing some of the supposed profits, they are often told there are fees or taxes to pay. When the fraudster decides they have taken everything they can, they shut down access to the fake trading platform, close their social media accounts, block the victim’s attempts to contact them and simply disappear.
This is bad enough, but it gets much, much worse when you learn that the people doing the stealing are often doing it against their will as victims of human trafficking. Despite sounding like something from a dystopian thriller, it is real life and has been happening for years.
The Rise of Scam Compounds
Pig butchering scams are believed to have started in China in the 2010s, but when COVID-19 struck in 2020, they spread rapidly. People were laid off from jobs or furloughed, so when new jobs were advertised offering high salaries, free housing and no experience required, many jumped at the chance. They still do today.
Applicants are told they will be given free flights to locations across Southeast Asia to start work immediately. When they arrive, they are held against their will and forced into scam compounds, where they spend their days defrauding people out of money through fraudulent crypto investment schemes.
In the early 2020s, crypto was booming. Combined with the fact that more people than usual were isolated due to worldwide lockdowns, these scams were incredibly successful and continue to be today.
Nonprofit organization Operation Shamrock, founded by former district attorney Erin West, is at the forefront of the fight against this crime and estimates that hundreds of billions of dollars have been stolen through these scams.
In addition to the vast amounts of money stolen, the number of people who have been trafficked is phenomenal. In 2025, INTERPOL stated that it believed at least 300,000 people from more than 66 countries had been trafficked, but many say the true figure is likely to be much, much higher.
Fraud Has More Than One Victim
The introduction of human trafficking on such a phenomenal scale changes everything about how we view the fraud landscape. For the most part, we have traditionally viewed fraud as involving a perpetrator and a victim. With so-called pig butchering fraud, there is an additional layer in between – people who are both carrying out the fraud and victims themselves.
So how are these barbaric scam compounds common knowledge yet still able to operate?
Erin told me, “This crime is built to exploit the seams between countries. The compounds operate where prosecution won't reach, the fraud funds the very governments that should be stopping it, and the victims — both the people losing everything and the trafficked workers forced to scam them — fall through every jurisdictional crack."
The problem is that transnational organized crime is exactly that: fraud that spans many countries, run by highly organized and powerful criminal gangs. The scam compounds where people like Small Q are held are patrolled by armed groups, and local law enforcement is often powerless against them.
Although international intervention is increasing, it is slow, and the scam operations are often moved across borders before action can be taken.
AI Is Accelerating the Threat
Artificial intelligence is also transforming this type of fraud. New technology allows fraudsters to send thousands of messages simultaneously, in the language of their intended victim, create convincing voice messages and build highly sophisticated fake trading platforms that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.
We are also entering the era of real-time video manipulation, which is perhaps the most alarming development AI has enabled.
Things were bad enough when a fraudster had to spend time making a deepfake of a person and sending a pre-recorded video message, but now things have escalated even further. New technology allows fraudsters to conduct live video calls while digitally assuming someone else’s face.
With the right program, a fraudster can change their appearance, voice, gender or skin color to match whoever they have been pretending to be, allowing them to chat with the victim via video call.
This is a game changer for fraudsters who previously had to convince victims they were genuine while avoiding video calls because of bad reception, privacy concerns or whatever excuse they could think of.
Unfortunately, real-time video manipulation is likely to persuade thousands of people to send money to criminals.
The Fight Is Far From Over
Despite the significant work underway to "educate, mobilize, disrupt," to quote Operation Shamrock’s tagline, no one can currently see an end to this situation.
Banks and crypto companies are improving detection. Some social media companies are slowly working to identify fake accounts. Law enforcement cooperation is increasing and public awareness is growing. However, these criminal gangs are masters at what they do, preying on both human and technological vulnerabilities.
For those of us in the fight against financial crime, the best we can do right now is to continue to educate ourselves and others, encourage collaboration and treat victims of fraud with the respect they deserve.