'Pig butchering' investment scam: How does it work and what can you do to prevent it?

More than $55M was reported stolen in investment scams by Torontonians over the last 9 months. Is 'pig butchering' making it worse?

“It really upsets me every time I get one of these in,” Rotfleisch said. “And this week, there were three of them. The sender of the message will ask a mundane question, sometimes addressing the recipient by a name that is not theirs. When the recipient responds, it sometimes sparks further conversation, police say.Once trust has been established, an opportunity to invest is put forth to the victim.

Eventually, fraudsters will send the proceeds to centralized crypto exchanges and cash them out for traditional money. Last November, the founder of Binance, one of the most popular exchanges,Victims of these kinds of scams are most often not wealthy individuals looking to grow profits, as some might expect, Coffey explained – they’re people without money, desperate for income, and willing to use what little they have to acquire more.

“Once the money has been sent off – I’m not going to say it’s impossible – but it’s very unlikely they will ever see it again,” Coffey said. “It's just a really, really, really sad and harsh reality.” “We’re at a point now, unfortunately, where the federal government has to get involved. There has to be a commission of sorts focusing solely on cyber issues, whether it be crypto, whether it be breaches, whether it be child pornography or anything else in between,” Warren said. “Because the current model, it just doesn't work anymore.”Due to the personalized nature of ‘pig butchering’ and many other investment, romance, or personal scams, it can be hard to recognize upfront.

Source: News Formal (newsformal.com)

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