WASHINGTON — " Slaughtering pigs " are also known as online love scams, which mainly occur in Southeast Asia and have begun to move to Europe and the United States in recent years. The masterminds behind this type of scam use fake identities, and the prey are usually people who are looking for love on dating platforms. They deceive the other party into investing in fraudulent cryptocurrency websites or directly transferring money. " Slaughtering pigs " are mainly operated by Chinese gangs. They have established a multi-billion dollar fraud industry in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar, and forced people kidnapped from various countries to commit fraud.
They who are looking for a partner have become the best prey
In December 2022 , 38 -year- old Olivia Bowman ( a pseudonym was used at her request ) from Connecticut, USA, was in a difficult situation where her marriage was on the rocks. The long-term separation between her and her husband made their relationship like strangers, and divorce was inevitable.
Hoping to quickly find a new partner and start the next journey of life, Berman registered himself as a member on a website called " Dating a Millionaire " (millionairematch.com) .
The boldfaced ad on the site 's home page states " The World's Largest Millionaire Dating Site . " Here's the 'description': Dating a Millionaire is a dating site for singles who are serious about finding their soul mate. With over five million members, you're bound to find someone who challenges your intellect, shares your interests, and loves you. Our client base is diverse, including enterprising professionals like executives, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and investors, as well as high net worth individuals like celebrities, socially prominent individuals, millionaires, and billionaires.
One day after signing up, Berman met a Dutchman named "Willy Bob" who had just moved to New Jersey . Bob loved sports and traveling , had well-developed muscles, thick short hair and sexy wheat-colored skin.
" The photo was too good to be True, " Berman told VOA. But she didn't think much about it and immediately started chatting with Bob, and then immediately moved to another social platform WhatsApp .
" The first thing I noticed was that his WhatsApp profile picture was a cat. I thought it was a bit strange, where was his own photo? Why use a cat as his profile picture? " Berman once again " didn't think much " - after all, loving small animals is an advantage. The two began to chat, from Bob 's British shorthair pet cat named Coco to his love of fitness, travel, and cooking, to his experience of being a world-renowned home - born in the Netherlands, grew up in Singapore, returned to the Netherlands, and finally moved to New Jersey, USA, to become an operations manager for the real estate company Compass .
" I was fascinated by his story, " Berman said. " Since December 2 , there has not been a day that we haven't talked. I was like, he really likes me! " Gradually, Berman discovered that Bob often spoke broken English, such as " I wish you a quiet night " , which Americans never use. But Berman still " didn't think much about it " - after all, Bob is Dutch and English is not his native language.
After ten days of heated conversation, Bob asked Berman a 'question': " Do you know about cryptocurrency? Do you know how to trade cryptocurrency? " Berman was not completely ignorant of cryptocurrency, but she was not very knowledgeable either. Bob began to offer himself as her " mentor " - from how to download the app , to how to exchange cash for cryptocurrency, how to set up an e-wallet, and how to earn interest, Bob quickly turned from Berman's online boyfriend to a cryptocurrency trading mentor. In order to prevent Berman from making mistakes due to lack of understanding, Bob often asked Berman to take screenshots of each step and send them to him to ensure smooth transactions.
A month passed quickly. Berman exchanged more and more cash for cryptocurrencies, and Bob taught him patiently, and even sent a bouquet of flowers to Berman's doorstep when they were happy.
Seeing that she was earning more and more money in her e-wallet, Berman, encouraged by Bob, began to borrow money from everywhere and put more cash into the high-yield cryptocurrency trading. With an annual salary of more than $ 150,000 , Berman had a good reputation, so she quickly got loans approved by major banks. Bob was also happy for Berman and even encouraged her to mortgage her house to borrow more money.
By New Year's Day 2023 , Berman had put $ 550,000 into her electronic wallet . This included bank loans, her own early withdrawal of pension funds, and money borrowed from friends. She also felt that it was time to meet Bob. Bob readily 'agreed': " Okay, honey, let's meet tomorrow! " On the day of the meeting, Berman did not see Bob in person, but a photo of a car accident on his 'phone': Bob said that he had a car accident and was receiving treatment in the hospital.
Berman enlarged the hospital photo Bob sent and looked at it carefully. He suddenly felt as if the sky was falling. There was a big cross sign at the entrance of the hospital, and all the other people in the background of the photo were Asian.
“ I burst into tears when I saw the photo. I told my friends I was going to commit suicide! ” Berman recalled. “ That was definitely not an American hospital – there are no crosses in front of American hospitals. ” Suddenly awake, Berman began to recall various 'doubts': Bob's poor English, the wrong photos he sent, his excessive attention to her investment in cryptocurrency, and the sweet promises he made about their future together but they never met. Bob even sent a Chinese message by mistake once, and then quickly withdrew it.
Berman told 'VOA': " I also asked for a video call. But Bob said he had psychological trauma because he once witnessed his friend's car accident while he was on a video call with him. " Gochenour , who lives in Ohio, is in a relationship with his online lover , Kris Gia , who , like Bob, suffered from psychological trauma after " witnessing a friend's car accident during a video call " and is unable to make a video call with Gochenour.
Jiya’s background is as colorful as Bob’s: she is from Ukraine, half Ukrainian and half Asian, currently lives in Seattle, and is versatile, specializing in Ethereum trading and liquidity mining. ( In the field of cryptocurrency, “ mining ” refers to a way to obtain token rewards ) During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 , 48 -year-old data center engineer Gochenol met Jia on the dating section of the famous social networking site Facebook . During the two months of heated chats, Jia talked about everything from family matters to everything else. The two quickly developed a liking for each other and their relationship began to become close, until Jia " accidentally " mentioned one day that she was an expert in cryptocurrency trading.
Unsuspecting, Gochenol followed Jia's advice and opened an e-wallet to trade Ethereum. After investing about $ 25,800 , Gochenol suddenly found that his e-wallet was empty one day. He immediately contacted the website's customer service, but was told that " you have to pay more than $ 10,000 in taxes before you can withdraw your principal and interest. " Gochenol was 'shocked': " That's when I realized I had been cheated. " He told VOA that looking back, he certainly felt stupid for ignoring too many suspicious points, but " it was 2021 , and Westerners were not familiar with these scams. Americans knew nothing about it . " After discovering that he had been cheated, Gochenol was so depressed that he wanted to commit suicide, but he managed to pull through.
He believes that in the face of such a large-scale global fraud, the supervision mechanisms of major social networking sites are far from enough, especially Facebook. " Facebook only cares about its own stock price. They are simply a (stinking) sewer. " After being scammed, Gochenol began looking for information about online dating scams online. In addition to discovering that Jia's photos were stolen from a real-life Hong Kong internet celebrity, he also learned a lot about underground banking and financial crimes in China. He told VOA with a wry 'smile': " I don't want to say that I have lost trust in every Chinese person. It's not to that extent, but this thought does come up often. "
From Southeast Asia to Europe to the United States, " pig-killing scams " are everywhere
Gochenol now spends a lot of time every day researching online fraud and anti-fraud science. After checking the " Telegram " group where Gochenol was " lurking " , the VOA reporter found that the fraud gang had made its criminal activities public, organized, informationized and streamlined. In a Telegram group called " Seoul Deposit Talk " with 20,677 members, members posted a large number of " pig raising guides " with detailed 'details': from how Americans usually take out loans, withdraw money from retirement accounts, mortgage loans, pretend to travel around the world, discuss daily life and hobbies, conduct brainwashing education, persuade the other party to manage money, and build trust and intimacy.
" Slaughtering pigs " is a popular Chinese Internet term, which is a common name for online dating and marriage fraud by fraud gangs. Fraudsters prepare " pig feed " such as personality settings and dating routines , and call social platforms " pig pens " to find fraud targets, which they call " pigs " . Establishing a romantic or friendly relationship is called " raising pigs " ; finally defrauding money is called " killing pigs " .
In recent years, as the scope of " pig butchering " has spread all over the world and its influence has become increasingly greater, even English has begun to directly use the translation of " pig butchering " : pig butchering .
Many of the fraudsters are victims themselves. They come from different countries ( mostly China and Southeast Asian countries, and recently expanded to other more distant regions such as Africa and the Middle East ) . They are often deceived into Southeast Asian countries with " high-paying jobs " as bait, and then locked up in " industrial parks " with strict security . They completely lose their freedom and have to engage in fraudulent work. If their " performance " is not good, they will face the consequences of hunger, violence and even death.
an investigation report released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in August 2023 , at least 220,000 people around the world have been abducted to Cambodia and Myanmar and forced to engage in online fraud activities. The United Nations describes this phenomenon as " modern slavery " . If the total scale of forced fraud in countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and the Philippines is estimated, the number of people may be as high as 500,000 .
In February 2024 , John M. Griffin , a professor of finance at the University of Texas at Austin , co-authored a paper with another author titled "How Does Cryptocurrency Funding Fuel Slavery ? " --On the Economics of Pig Killing", by tracking the ins and outs of cryptocurrency transactions from January 2020 to February 2024, reveals the scale and trend of network Crypto Scam .
The paper describes the general trend of pig-killing scams as 'follows': " In 2020 , we observed a large inflow of funds that should have come from Chinese victims. However, after China's financial sector banned cryptocurrency trading in 2021 , Chinese victims seemed to decrease sharply and then turned to American victims. " Griffin said in an interview with Voice of America that the amount of fraud he tracked in four years was as high as 75 billion U.S. dollars, of which about 15 billion U.S. dollars came from victims in Europe and the United States . Griffin believes that virtual currency trading companies, including Binance and Huobi, bear a great deal of guilt. He 'said': " Even though the US government recently reached a settlement with Binance, a lot of money is still flowing through Binance. Therefore, if a company wants to settle with the government, they should be honest, not hide their illegal activities. So if these exchanges are going to facilitate forced fraud, they should be kicked out of our financial system. " Binance, which Griffin mentioned, is a global cryptocurrency exchange. Binance's currency trading service began in 2017 and can process about 1.4 million orders per second, providing transactions for more than 150 cryptocurrencies. Since the beginning of 2018 , Binance has been considered the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume.
In April 2024 , Zhao Changpeng, the founder of Binance and a Chinese Canadian, was charged in the United States with allowing criminals to launder money on his platform and was sentenced to four months in prison.
The vigilant United States began to crack down on criminals . In May 2024 , the Central District Court of California announced an indictment accusing two Chinese citizens of playing a major role in money laundering in cryptocurrency investment scams. One of the two Chinese citizens is 41- year-old Daren Li ( transliteration ) , a resident of China, Cambodia and the UAE. He was arrested at the Atlanta airport on April 12 and was subsequently sent to the Central District Court of California; the other 38- year-old Yicheng Zhang ( transliteration ) is a Chinese citizen living in Temple City, California, who was arrested in Los Angeles.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a 'release': " While fraud in the cryptocurrency market takes many forms and hides in many far-flung locations, the perpetrators are not at large. Today, we announced the arrests of two foreign nationals who are accused of leading a money laundering scheme that laundered at least $ 73 million in connection with an international cryptocurrency investment scam. " Li and Zhang were each charged with conspiracy to commit multiple criminal money laundering and six substantive international money laundering charges. If convicted, the defendants face up to 20 years in prison on each count.
Lambert , Assistant Director of Investigations for the U.S. Secret Service, 'said': " Sophisticated financial fraud schemes such as scams pose a clear and present threat to America's financial infrastructure as countless Americans continue to fall victim to these predators. " He also said, " In 2023 , the Secret Service and our partners recovered more than $ 1.1 billion in financial fraud, and we are on track to exceed that number this year. " In December 2023 , the U.S. Department of Justice announced the prosecution of four men for conspiracy to conduct Crypto Scam, with victims losing more than $80 million. According to the indictment, Lu Zhang, Justin Walker and Joseph Wong are California residents . They and Illinois resident Hailong Zhu were charged with seven counts of conspiracy to launder money, conceal money laundering and international money laundering .
The Federal Trade Commission said that the United States received 70,000 reports related to pig-killing scams in 2022 , and the victims lost more than $ 1.3 billion. In 2023 , there were 64,000 reports of pig-killing scams , with losses of $ 1.14 billion, and an average loss of about $ 2,000 per victim . The report released by the commission stated that pig-killing scams, also known as online dating scams, have the highest average losses compared to other types of financial fraud ( such as impersonating government or public security fraud ) .
However, Griffin, who has been tracking virtual currency transactions, believes that the actual amount of victims is much higher than what the US government has announced, because after all, not every victim will report the case. He is not optimistic about the 'future': " Since 2021 , the pig-killing scam has become particularly rampant and widespread. Unfortunately, I don't think the situation will get better in the future, because there are not enough rectification measures in place, and criminals are also looking for new scams. "
In addition to his job, Troy Gochenol now volunteers at GASO, a charity group that helps victims of online fraud, to help other victims .
" These are just the tip of the iceberg. We are now facing a massive crime that we have never seen before. My experience was bad, but there are much worse than mine. In 2022 , I met a man who was defrauded of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, he chose to commit suicide in the end. " Gochenol is still single, but he has vowed not to use dating 'sites': " I have completely lost trust in others and am always on guard. "
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