A new type of online scam has started to appear. It is called Pig Butchering Scam and in Greek we would call it Pig Butchery Scam.
The internet is full of scams. From time to time incredible stories have been heard, from simple pyramid schemes and fake e-shops, to a woman who sent money for her beloved astronaut to come back from space and marry her.
And it all starts with a bit of "social engineering" aimed at tricking the victim, putting him at a disadvantage socially so that he finally trusts a real stranger he met online.
A new variant of social engineering is the Pig Butchering Scam, which is on the rise these days. It basically tries to trap unsuspecting victims into taking all their money with the promise that they will make a lot of money easily. That is what they do in the pyramids.
Η απάτη Pig Butchering προήλθε από την Κίνα και το όνομά της έχει να κάνει με την κινεζική εκδοχή της φράσης "sha zhu pan" (殺 豬 盤). Η φράση αυτή υπονοεί ότι οι επιτιθέμενοι στην αρχή "παχαίνουν τα θύματα" (τα ταίζουν, τους ρίχνουν δόλωμα) και μετά τους παίρνουν ό,τι έχουν. Σας θυμίζει τίποτα; Ίσως τους παπατζήδες στην Ομόνοια και τους υποτιθέμενους πελάτες τους - κράχτες;
Pig Butchering scams, however, usually involve cryptocurrency schemes, although they can also involve other types of financial transactions.
The bait
Στην αρχή οι απατεώνες μπορεί να σας στείλουν ένα απλό μήνυμα με sms ή μέσω των social media του τύπου "Γειά" ή "Δημήτρη, περάσαμε ωραία εχθές". Αν τους απαντήσετε λέγοντας τους φυσικά ότι κάνουν λάθος στον παραλήπτη, αυτό σημαίνει ότι έχετε την ανάγκη να μιλήσετε με κάποιον και έτσι ο απατεώνας αδράξει την ευκαιρία για να ξεκινήσει μια συζήτηση μαζί σας, ώστε τελικά να σας κάνει να τον δείτε σαν ένα νέο διαδικτυακό φίλο.
He will make sure to spend several hours and days with you so that you feel familiar and after building a relationship, the hacker will confide that he has made a lot of money from investing in cryptocurrencies and suggest that you should consider getting into the cryptocurrency game as well.
The fattening
The scammer then gives you the link of a website that invests his own money, which is actually a malicious application or web platform that looks trustworthy but actually impersonates the platforms of legitimate financial institutions.
Once you enter the webσελίδα θα δείτε σε πραγματικό χρόνο τα δεδομένα της market as far as cryptocurrencies are concerned and a bunch of analysis that will show you the possibilities of investing in cryptocurrencies.
And once the victim is convinced, creates an account there and makes his first small deposit into his "investment account", he will soon see his balance "grow".
These platforms are actually so well set up to look legitimate and sophisticated that they have many touches and details of verisimilitude. They allow you to make video calls with their services and allow you to withdraw some money from the platform to reassure you that everything is under your control. The latter is a tactic used by fraudsters in traditional schemes as well Ponzi.
The butcher shop
We imagine you have figured out where this whole story is going to lead. Once the victim has deposited all the money they have, the scammers close the account and disappear.
Από εκεί άλλωστε βγήκε και το όνομα της απάτης. Οι κλέφτες στοχεύουν σε όλο το "γουρούνι". Ψάχνουν ανθρώπους που είναι κοινωνικά ευάλωτοι, όπως ηλικιωμένους, με μακροχρόνια προβλήματα υγείας, άτομα που αισθάνονται απομονωμένα κλπ. Θέλουν να πάρουν μέχρι το τελευταίο ευρώ και είναι πολύ επίμονοι.
Although pulling off the Pig Butchering scam requires a lot of communication and long-term relationship building with victims, researchers report that criminal syndicates in China developed scripts and books that allowed them to pull off this scam on a large scale, with a bunch of inexperienced scammers or even with forced laborers who have fallen victims of human trafficking.
How to protect yourself
The idea is similar to that of attacks ransomware and digital extortion, where law enforcement encourages victims not to pay hackers' ransom demands, so they become discouraged and eventually stop trying.
Although the Chinese government suppressed all these frauds κρυπτονομισμάτων, ξεκινώντας το 2021, οι εγκληματίες μπόρεσαν να μεταφέρουν τις "επιχειρήσεις" τους σε χώρες της Νοτιοανατολικής Ασίας, όπως την Καμπότζη, το Λάος, την Μαλαισία και την Ινδονησία.
Governments around the world warn more and more for the threat.
In 2021, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 4.300 submissions regarding Pig Butchering scams totaling more than $429 million in losses. And at the end of November, the US Department of Justice announced that it had seized seven domains used in Pig Butchering scams in 2022.
"In this scheme, fraudsters, posing as highly successful cryptocurrency traders, lure victims into purported cryptocurrency investments by providing fictitious returns to encourage additional investments," the FBI said in warning of October 2022.
The main way to avoid such pitfalls is information and public education. If people know the tell-tale signs and understand the concepts behind scams, they are less likely to fall for them.
And for the information to reach a wider audience, those who learned from today's article (or any other article) would do well to pass the information on to others in their family and social circles.
As with romance scams and other highly personal and emotional attacks, researchers say pig butcher scams have a huge psychological impact on victims, in addition to the financial cost.
