How pig butchering crypto scams work, and how to spot one

The scam does not start with crypto. It starts with a message that seems to have reached the wrong person, a friendly reply, and weeks of conversation before money is ever mentioned. By the time an investment appears, the victim is talking to someone they consider a friend or a partner. That patience is what makes these scams so expensive, and it is why the warning signs are worth knowing before the first message arrives.

How big is the problem?

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) publishes the complaints Americans file each year. Its 2025 report gives these figures:

Measure, 2025 (IC3)	Figure
All complaints received	1,008,597
All reported losses	$20.877 billion
Complaints involving cryptocurrency	181,565
Losses involving cryptocurrency	$11.366 billion
Cryptocurrency investment fraud: complaints	61,559
Cryptocurrency investment fraud: losses	$7.228 billion
Crypto investment fraud losses reported by people aged 60+	$2,763,921,910
Crypto ATM and kiosk complaints / losses	13,460 / $389 million

The report calls cryptocurrency investment fraud the highest source of financial losses to Americans in 2025 and says these scams are largely run by organised crime groups in Southeast Asia that use victims of human trafficking as forced labour. FinCEN’s 2023 alert on pig butchering says the same, and adds that many of the people sending the messages are themselves trafficked and working against their will.

What are the stages of a pig butchering scam?

FinCEN’s alert sets out the method in four steps. The wording below is ours; the stages are FinCEN’s.

1. First contact

A text, a direct message on social media, a professional networking site or a dating app. FinCEN notes that the opener is often presented as a wrong number or as an attempt to reconnect with an old friend. The profile may show wealth and an enviable lifestyle.

2. Trust

The scammer keeps talking, for days or weeks, until the victim trusts them. Money is not the topic yet. The IC3 report describes the same pattern: contact through texts, social media, ads or dating apps, then a quick move to a private messaging app.

3. The investment

The scammer mentions a lucrative opportunity in crypto, sometimes gold or foreign exchange, and directs the victim to a website or app that looks legitimate but is controlled by the scammer. FinCEN describes variations: asking for remote access to the victim’s device to open exchange accounts on their behalf, guiding them through screenshots, directing them to buy crypto at a crypto ATM, and fake “play-to-earn” games. The platform shows fabricated returns. A small withdrawal may be allowed, to build confidence.

4. The point of no return

When the victim slows down, the pressure rises. The platform shows “losses” that must be covered with new deposits, or demands taxes, early-withdrawal fees or penalties before any money can leave. When the victim cannot or will not pay more, contact stops and the money is gone. FinCEN notes victims have cashed in tax-advantaged retirement accounts and taken out home equity loans and second mortgages to keep investing.

What are the warning signs?

FinCEN’s alert lists red flags for banks. Many of them translate directly into signs an individual can watch for in their own situation or in a relative’s.

Sign	What it looks like from the inside
An unsolicited new contact talks about an investment with large returns	Someone who first wrote to you by mistake now trades crypto and offers to teach you
Instructions to buy crypto at a kiosk and send it to an address they provide	You are told to feed cash into a crypto kiosk and scan a QR code they send
Pressure to act before a deadline	The opportunity is said to close within days
Taxes, fees or penalties demanded before a withdrawal	A share of the balance must be paid as tax before the funds are released
A small deposit back, followed by requests for much larger amounts	A successful test withdrawal, then encouragement to invest savings
A platform website with spelling errors, odd testimonials, a lookalike domain, a recent registration, or contact only by chat	The app came as a direct download link, not from an app store
Liquidating savings, retirement accounts or taking a home equity loan to invest	The investment has started to drive major financial decisions
Anxiety and urgency about getting money to the platform	A relative becomes secretive or distressed about an online “opportunity”

FinCEN makes the same point to banks: no single red flag is decisive, and the surrounding facts matter, such as the customer’s usual financial activity and whether several signs appear together. No single sign proves a scam. Two or three together, especially an unsolicited contact plus an unfamiliar platform, should stop any transfer until someone outside the conversation has looked at it.

Who loses the most?

Anyone can be targeted, but the losses are not spread evenly. The IC3 report breaks down cryptocurrency investment fraud by the age of the person reporting it:

Age group, 2025	Complaints	Losses
Under 20	629	$12,582,997
20–29	4,627	$117,353,587
30–39	8,576	$412,626,617
40–49	10,750	$924,623,370
50–59	9,856	$1,383,263,248
60 and over	13,685	$2,763,921,910

Losses rise with age in every bracket, and people aged 60 and over report the most, both in complaints and in dollars. The report gives a 48% increase in complaints and a 25% increase in losses for this category compared with 2024.

How do I talk to a relative who may be caught in one?

People inside a pig butchering scam have usually been coached to distrust anyone who questions the investment, and they may feel ashamed. Arguments about the platform tend to backfire. Approaches that keep the conversation open:

• Ask about the person, not the money: how they met, whether they have ever spoken on a video call, whether the person has asked for anything else.
• Ask to see a withdrawal of the full balance, not a small test amount. A real platform pays out; a fake one invents a tax or fee, which is itself the warning sign FinCEN describes.
• Offer to look up the platform together on the regulator’s register in your country, and to check when its web address was registered.
• Agree on a pause: no new deposits for a week while you look into it together. Scammers push hard against any pause, which tends to make the pattern visible.

If the person is 60 or over, the Department of Justice’s National Elder Fraud Hotline at 833-FRAUD-11 (833-372-8311) can advise relatives as well as victims.

How is it different from other crypto scams?

Scam	How it reaches you	How the money leaves
Pig butchering	Long relationship, then an investment platform	Deposits to a fake platform, then “fees”
Address poisoning	Lookalike addresses planted in your transaction history	You copy the wrong address yourself
Recovery scams	Offer to get lost funds back, sometimes impersonating officials or law firms	Upfront fees for a recovery that never comes
Fake support	A “help desk” asks for your seed phrase	Your wallet is emptied with the words you gave

Pig butchering often leads straight into a recovery scam. The FBI report counts 10,516 recovery scam complaints with $1.4 billion in losses in 2025, and notes that those losses may include money from the scams that prompted the victim to seek help.

What should I do if I think I am being targeted?

• Stop sending money, including any “fee” or “tax” to release funds.
• Do not hand over a seed phrase or install remote-access software at anyone’s request.
• Keep the evidence: chat logs, usernames, phone numbers, the platform’s web address, wallet addresses and transaction IDs. FinCEN lists exactly these as useful to investigators.
• Report it. FinCEN points victims to the FBI’s IC3 at ic3.gov and to the SEC’s tips, complaints and referrals system. For people aged 60 and over, the Department of Justice runs the National Elder Fraud Hotline at 833-FRAUD-11 (833-372-8311).
• Ignore anyone who offers to recover the money for a fee. See the recovery scam figures above.

Does anyone intervene before the money is gone?

Sometimes. The FBI’s Operation Level Up, launched in January 2024, uses IC3 complaint data to find and warn people who are being defrauded. The 2025 report says the operation notified 3,780 victims that year, that 78% of them did not know they were being scammed, and that it estimated victim savings of $225,871,319. Since launch, it reports more than 8,000 victims notified and more than $500 million in savings. If a call comes from the FBI about an investment, verify it independently by contacting your local FBI field office through the number on fbi.gov, not a number given by the caller: the IC3 report also warns of scammers impersonating the IC3 itself.

The simplest defence is still the earliest one. An investment introduced by someone you met online, on a platform you had never heard of, is the pattern these figures describe. Saying no at that point costs nothing.