Context
Pig Butchering Scams, a type of online financial fraud, are on the rise worldwide, including in India.
Pig Butchering Scam
- Origins: The term “pig butchering” refers to the scammers’ strategy of “fattening up” their victims by gradually building trust before “slaughtering” them and stealing their money.
- Pig butchering is a worldwide investment scam that originated in China and gained significant prominence during the pandemic.
- Alternative Name: The “sha zhu pan” scam.
- Fraud Type: An online investment scam where fraudsters create fake identities to deceive victims into investing in fraudulent schemes.
Methods involved In Pig Butchering Scam
- Contact Tactics: The scam starts with the “host” reaching out to potential victims through social media, dating apps, or deceptive messages.
- Establishing Fake Friendship: Once a target, referred to as the “pig,” is identified, the host establishes a fake friendship and encourages them to venture into cryptocurrency trading.
- Deceptive Trading App: The host uses a fake trading app to trick the victim into thinking they are earning profits from fabricated trades.
- Building Trust and Increasing Investments: As the victim’s trust deepens, the host convinces them to invest more money, a tactic known as “fattening the pig.”
- Challenges in Fund Retrieval: When victims attempt to withdraw their funds, the fraudulent platform either offers excuses or imposes hefty fees, ultimately exposing the scam.
- Due to the characteristics of blockchain transactions, retrieving lost funds is exceedingly difficult.
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Blockchain Technology
Blockchains represent a novel secure data structure, reliant on cryptography and distributed across a network. This technology underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, facilitating the transfer of digital assets and data.
- Decentralized Transaction: Spearheaded by Bitcoin, blockchains establish consensus among distributed nodes, enabling the transfer of digital goods without centralized transaction authorization.
- Features of the Technology: Empowering simultaneous anonymity and security, peer-to-peer, instant, and frictionless transactions, this technology redistributes trust from centralized intermediaries to a vast global network.
- Through mass collaboration, sophisticated code, and cryptography, it establishes an immutable public ledger of all network transactions.
- A block represents the “current” segment of a blockchain, recording recent transactions, which, upon completion, becomes a permanent part of the blockchain database.
- With each block’s completion, a new block is created. These blocks are interconnected (forming a chain) in a linear, chronological order, with each block containing a hash of the preceding block.
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Common victims of Pig Butchering scams
- People facing loneliness or isolation
- Individuals with limited financial literacy or investment experience
- Those undergoing substantial life changes or emotional upheaval
- Middle-aged and older individuals with substantial savings or retirement funds
- Naturally trusting or empathetic individuals
- Users frequenting platforms such as Telegram and Instagram
- Homemakers and retired individuals seeking fast money opportunities
May 23, 2024
