Scammers Use Financial Grooming, Known as ‘Pig Butchering,’ to Steal Victims’ Savings

The terrible term describes a key tactic for criminals perpetrating investment and romance scams

Ken Budd,

AARP

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En español

Published February 14, 2025

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Jon Krause

Her name, she said, was Jessie. Dennis Jones, 82, met her on Facebook. The divorced, beloved grandfather and father had chatted online with Jessie for months, and he felt close to her, even though they’d never met. On a family vacation, he revealed to his son and daughter that he was exploring a major cryptocurrency investment opportunity. But the investment, and the friendship, were frauds. Jones invested his life savings — and Jessie still pressed him for more money. He was financially ruined. Soon after, a distraught Jones ended his life.

“There wasn’t enough [money left] even to pay for his headstone,” Jones’s daughter Laura said on a recent episode of the AARP podcast The Perfect Scam.

This story isn’t unusual, unfortunately. Jones was the victim of a financial grooming scam, often known as pig butchering. It’s typically an overseas-based fraud where scammers connect with you online, form a relationship, then lure you into bogus cryptocurrency investments. The criminal may take weeks or months to establish trust — grooming the victim — and finding commonalities (“You’re a widow? I lost my spouse as well… “), before eventually mentioning that they’ve recently made a lot of money on a certain investment platform. Maybe you’d be interested in giving it a try?

“Pig butchering” comes from “shā zhū pán,” a Chinese mob term that means fattening a pig before slaughter. Given the term’s crudeness, AARP refers to it as “financial grooming.” INTERPOL calls it “romance baiting.” And it's a serious, growing problem.

A global criminal enterprise

Losses to investment scams, fueled largely by financial grooming, rose from $3.31 billion in 2022 to $4.57 billion in 2023, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). They can be devastating. In September 2024, for instance, an Illinois widower had nearly $1 million stolen from her in a financial grooming scam, she told a local news station. That same month, a North Carolina man revealed that he'd lost $750,000.

“My inbox is flooded with emails,” says Erin West, a former deputy district attorney in Santa Clara County, California, who spent five years focusing on battling financial grooming (or pig butchering) and, in some cases, managing to get the stolen money back to victims. She’s since founded a nonprofit called Operation Shamrock, dedicated to preventing these scams. “I hear from [victims] even though [Operation Shamrock] is not a reporting platform. By the time they get to me, they’re desperate, and nobody has helped them.”

Victims on all sides

These scams began in 2019 in countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia, when the Chinese mafia converted casinos into scam centers, says Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. The fraud then expanded during the pandemic. And the scam victims aren’t the only victims: “The people forced to run these scams are being enslaved,” says Stokes, referring to the slave encampments holding workers who have been lured by employment scams to compounds where their passports are stolen, and may be beaten or tortured if they fail to meet scam quotas, according to anti-trafficking organization Destiny Rescue.

In 2023, at least 120,000 people in Myanmar and 100,000 in Cambodia were “forced to execute lucrative online scams,” the United Nations reported. That number has likely increased as scam centers have expanded to countries such as the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates. In a May 2024 report, the U.S. Institute of Peace estimated that 300,000 people are working in scam centers, a number it noted was probably conservative. (Find out more about human trafficking and scams on this episode of AARP's The Perfect Scam.)

What financial grooming looks like

Financial groomers are masters of manipulation. Using a fake online persona, they will contact the target through a dating app, social media platform, or an unsolicited message, such as a wrong-number text (the recipient will respond with something like, “You have the wrong number,” and a conversation ensues). Then, there will be a long get-to-know-you period, where the victim is convinced that they’ve established a new romance or friendship before the criminals reveal an amazing investment opportunity. Usually, it involves cryptocurrency, but it could be gold bars or other commodities, Stokes says.

Because victims may be reluctant at first, scammers often start by suggesting small, low-risk investments and providing fake returns. Victims see fabricated profit reports and testimonials, and “highly polished documents, websites, or links to what appear to be legitimate investment platforms,” West warns. “They will tell you to open accounts on online investment websites and instruct you to deposit money via wire transfer to shell companies, or direct transfers on legitimate virtual asset service providers (VASPs) or cryptocurrency exchanges,” according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The criminals also apply psychological pressure. They might urge quick action (you’ll make less money if you wait, they’ll say). Once you invest, scammers will push you to invest more money and use money-laundering tactics to move digital assets “across multiple jurisdictions and exchanges, making them nearly impossible to track,” according to TRM Labs, a company that helps financial institutions and government agencies investigate financial crimes. You’ll likely encounter issues ranging from hidden fees to difficulties withdrawing money. After the victim's finances are drained, the scammer vanishes.

Why financial grooming is successful

Scammers are “selling victims a dream,” as West puts it — and it’s an enticing mix of love and wealth.

“That dream looks plausible, because [the scammer] is investing a huge amount of time and energy into this relationship. You might get calls and texts — mostly texts — four hours a day and receive tons of pictures,” she says. One woman told West that she’d received 560 pictures from her scammer. “It’s easy to fall for the dream of, ‘I could have this fantastic relationship, and I could also use this proven technique for making money in cryptocurrency.’”

The scammer may also threaten to end the relationship if the victim doesn’t invest.

“They are using the same techniques used in cult-like situations,” West says. “They are isolating the victims and leading them to believe that only they can be trusted.”

Stokes says they are trying to get targets “under the ether,” which means “getting them into a heightened emotional state, getting them excited, and to trust the person that’s engaging with them. A lot of people who have experienced fraud will say, ‘Looking back, I felt like I was in some kind of trance.’ It’s because these criminals are getting our brains to not filter things logically, but to go right to an emotional response.”

How to protect yourself

In November 2024, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, announced that it had taken down more than two million accounts linked to scam centers in five countries. But financial grooming shows no signs of slowing. Some ways to stay safe:

1. Research investments. “Never invest in something that you do not completely understand,” says scam expert Steve Weisman, founder of Scamicide.com. Do your homework. Stokes recommends the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website, investor.gov, which offers advice for new and inexperienced investors.

2. Talk to a financial advisor. If the investment is legitimate, consulting an investment advisor shouldn’t be an issue. But scammers will tell you not to do this. They’ll say, “Don’t tell anybody about this,” or emphasize that you can only trust them. That’s a good sign that you should talk to someone else.

3. Ignore out-of-the-blue communications. If you receive a call, email, or text from someone you don’t know — or a message on social media — don’t respond. "We need to believe that everyone that is entering our lives digitally is a scammer unless proven otherwise,” says West. Also, be wary of people “who can seemingly never meet in person,” the U.S. Secret Service advises. That rule used to apply to video calls, but AI is changing that. In October 2024, police in Hong Kong busted a financial grooming ring where criminals reportedly used deepfake software tools to participate in live video calls.

4. Avoid messaging platforms. If your new friend wants to move your conversation to a messaging service like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal, that’s a red flag. The reason: Many dating apps and social media platforms are on the lookout for financial grooming scammers — so the criminals want to talk on platforms where they can’t be watched.

5. Watch for early affection. Scammers use proven, well-tested scripts. One tactic: “Within a matter of days, they’re using cute names, calling the victim ‘honey’ and ‘my love,’” says West. “You would not expect to be saying these kind of words of love in just a matter of weeks.” It’s called love bombing, and it’s a serious red flag for a romance scammer.

6. Conduct a reverse image search. This is an online tool that reveals information such as when and where a photo was taken, and where it appears online. With Google Image Search, for example, you can click its camera icon and then drag or upload an image. Why do it? Scammers re-use images on fake company websites. The CEO on one site might appear as the treasurer on another site or the head of HR on a third site, all with different names. (Here's more information on how to do a reverse image search.)

7. Research the apps. Fake companies also have fake apps. Apps used in financial grooming scams may seem legitimate, but they’re not typically on app platforms such as Google Play or Apple’s App Store, Weisman notes.

8. Share your experiences. If you’re using a dating app, “report suspicious user profiles to the dating site administrator and cease all contact with suspicious users,” IC3 recommends. The same is true with social media. Victims of financial grooming scams should report their cases to IC3 at IC3.gov.

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Ken Budd has written for National Geographic Traveler, Travel+Leisure, The Washington Post Magazine and many more. He is the author of a memoir, The Voluntourist.