TL;DR

• To recap on ‘Pig Butchering’ scams: Scammers find vulnerable people, usually on dating apps, build trust with them (known as ‘fattening them up’) and then get them to invest in crypto.

• Where in the past, all communication has been virtual, there’s been a recent spike in luring vulnerable people to in-person jobs.

• When the FBI puts out a Public Service Announcement about off-shore crypto scams, its worth sharing.

Full Story

Pretty intense title, we know….

We’ve written about the ‘Pig Butchering’ scam before.

To recap: Scammers find vulnerable people, usually on dating apps, build trust with them (known as ‘fattening them up’) and then get them to invest in crypto.

Problem is, instead of investing in legitimate crypto projects, they’re actually sending their money straight to the scammer.

When the scammer feels that they can no longer get anything more out of them, they’ll disappear off the face of the Earth.

It’s a pretty brazen type of scam, but the FBI (!!) has just released a Public Service Announcement about something that takes ‘Pig Butchering’ to a whole new level.

Where in the past, all communication has been virtual, there’s been a recent spike in luring vulnerable people to in-person jobs.

They’ll tempt potential employees with flights and accommodation (usually to South East Asian countries) for well-payed, ‘customer service’ jobs.

Once they arrive, they stay in 'compounds' with the other victims and the newly employed are forced to make payments into various crypto projects.

(Not real projects, but scams).

Why are we telling you this?

For one, we can’t believe just quite how crazy this is.

More importantly though, when the FBI puts out a Public Service Announcement about off-shore crypto scams, its worth sharing.

Now you know!