“Pig butchering” has nothing to do with farm animals. Pig butchering is a sophisticated romance scam in which con artists meet people online, seduce them with promises of love and companionship, and then convince them to sink their hard-earned money into fake cryptocurrency investments, which soon disappear.
What’s truly frightening is that these aren’t random sociopaths conning whomever they come across. It’s a massive criminal enterprise in which thousands of workers actively fleece targets all day, every day.
Pig butchering scams net $64 billion a year worldwide, according to the U.S. Institute for Peace. Americans lost about $5 billion in 2024, which was a 42% increase over the $3.5 billion lost in 2023.
This scam is called “pig butchering” because the swindlers “fatten” up their victims by building trust over weeks or months, and then “butcher” them by taking their money and disappearing.
You need to know about this scam. If you are online at all, you are a target.
Chinese crime lords
Here at Lovefraud, we’ve told countless stories about sociopaths who have proclaimed their love and then scammed their targets for money. My own sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, did it to me and multiple other women, taking more than $1 million in total. But this is nothing compared to pig butchering, in which Chinese crime lords operate industrial-scale scamming centers located primarily in Southeast Asia.
Yes, scamming centers. They’re like call centers, except the people are calling to steal your money. This is serious.
For years, Chinese criminals made money through illicit casinos and online gambling. But when the coronavirus struck, that revenue dried up because the casinos no longer had customers or workers, says a report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
So Chinese criminals converted old casinos and other properties into online scamming operations. They “steal tens of billions of dollars annually from people around the world — a massive criminal enterprise that rivals the global drug trade in scale and sophistication,” the report states.
Slave labor
According to the Wall Street Journal, hundreds of thousands of people work in the scamming centers. Many of them have been trafficked and are kept there by force.
How does this happen? The scam managers post online ads promising work in technology or call centers. People who apply for the jobs — many from India — are transported to the scamming centers in Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines. Their passports are confiscated, they are forced to work long hours and live in dormitories, and they can’t leave. The workers have quotas to meet, and if they fail, they may be beaten. They are modern-day slaves.
Who are the sociopaths here? Some of the people trying to find and seduce unsuspecting targets may actually be victims themselves, just trying to stay alive. The real sociopaths are the bosses running the scams.
Sophisticated tools
Another shocking story in the Wall Street Journal describes how the mayor in the Philippines turned her town into a hub for pig butchering — making money on the deal, of course.
She helped the scammers build a 25-acre compound that included an office complex, dormitories for 3,000 workers and 12 luxury villas for the criminal kingpins. The place was raided in March 2024. The mayor, Alice Guo, fled but was later arrested.
Pig butchering scammers take advantage of highly sophisticated online and artificial intelligence tools, such as:
- Names, contact information and bank records of potential victims stolen by hackers
- Artificial intelligence tools to change the faces and voices of the scam workers
- Instant messaging app channels to move stolen funds
- Money laundering for cryptocurrency
A few weeks ago, in October 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it seized $15 billion in bitcoin from Chen Zhi, a 38-year-old man from China, who allegedly oversaw a massive pig butchering operation in Cambodia. Chen Zhi is still at large.
Warning signs
How do you know if you’ve been targeted for a pig butchering scam? Here are warning signs from the FBI:
- Meeting someone online or through an unsolicited text message and having that person pitch an investment opportunity.
- Requests to move the conversation to an encrypted messaging application.
- Claims of high returns and a pressure to quickly invest.
- Requests that you limit contact with financial advisors and family.
- If you do send money, difficulty trying to withdraw your funds or being required to pay previously undisclosed fees and taxes to withdraw your funds.
Vulnerability
What makes people vulnerable to scams — including pig butchering romance scams? Is it a lack of intelligence? Low self-esteem? Financial illiteracy?
The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) has been researching this for years. They hoped to find a character flaw common to scam victims, educate the world about it and put an end to fraud. Well, they didn’t.
Read more: ‘Under the ether’ – why you fell for the scam
After 20 years of research, AARP learned that there is no universal character flaw that makes people susceptible to fraud. It doesn’t matter who you are. It matters how you are, and what’s going on in your life, when you get targeted.
AARP found four factors that best predicted losing money to scams:
• Stressful life events – Fraud victims experienced twice as many stressful life events, such as death of a family member, loss of a job, or feeling lonely during the time they encountered fraud than non-victims.
• Less social/family support – Fraud victims reported significantly less family support and closeness than non-victims.
• Stronger emotions – Victims reported far stronger emotional responses during fraud encounters than non-victims. These emotions were both positive and negative and led to more victims feeling out of control.
• Targeted by scammers – On average, fraud victims reported 60% more fraud encounters than non-victims. So people who had already been victimized are often victimized again.
What to do
If you suspect that you’ve been targeted in a scam, here’s what the FBI says you should do:
• Immediately stop sending money and file a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) as soon as possible. Crime reports are used for investigative and intelligence purposes. Rapid reporting can also help support the recovery of lost funds.
• Do not release any financial or personal identifying information or pay any additional fees or taxes to withdraw money you have invested in a potential scheme.
• Do not pay for services that claim to be able to recover lost funds, as these are often scams as well.
Of course, it’s best not to get involved to begin with. Understand that stress and emotional arousal make you more vulnerable to scams like pig butchering. If you’re feeling emotional or out of control, be aware that this is not the time to be making important decisions.
Learn more: How to report your abuser’s crimes so the police take you seriously
You feel like, “He ruined me.” Now what?