The pig butchering scams are back again this week with two major cases.
One of these involved a whopping $5 million stolen from victims.
Another involved a former bank CEO who got sentenced to 24 years behind bars for stealing nearly $50 million as a pig butchering victim.
The overall story highlights the value of caution, especially in the world of social media.
Every once in a while, the usual pig butchering scam pops up in the crypto community. In this scam, thousands of dollars (or even millions in some cases) are stolen via the internet amid fraudulent romance.
This week, a major crackdown in the U.S. revealed two of these major scams.
Nearly $5 million in USDT has been recovered from one scam, while the other case is seeing a former bank CEO from Kansas sentenced to over two decades in prison for embezzlement.
This week, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina announced that on 22 August, it seized nearly $5 million worth of USDT.
According to the announcement, the criminals behind this operation used a clever strategy: They approached victims under the guise of forming a romantic relationship.
Once the scammers achieved the trust of their victims, they then persuaded them to invest in a crypto trading platform.
According to U.S. Attorney Michael Easley, this strategy has been rinsed and repeated several times over the years, and many people have lost their life savings as a result.
The announcement did not mention any of the scammers being caught. However, FBI analysts are working to return all $5 million to the affected parties.
Which brings us to the second case:
In a separate but equally serious case this week, Shan Hanes, the former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Kansas, was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Why?
Hanes was found guilty of stealing a staggering $47.1 million from the bank between May and July 2023 in a more elaborate pig butchering scam.
However, Hanes was not the mastermind of this.
Instead, he was a victim who stole said funds to fulfil the scammers' demands.
According to the original report from CNBC, he stole the money from not one source but several sources, including a local church, an investment club and even his daughter's college savings account, to fund the fraudulent scheme.
The scammers allegedly convinced Hanes that he needed to make additional crypto purchases to unlock his profits.
Eventually, the bank, which the FDIC insured, crashed due to a massive blackhole of funds, leaving investors with around $9 million in losses.
These incidents reflect the rise in these kinds of scams, especially on social media and dating platforms.
The name “Pig Butchering” even comes from the method used by criminals to “fatten up” their victims before going in for the kill.
Ultimately, the moral lesson of the above stories revolves around the importance of caution.
Verify all sources, and treat all unsolicited social media DMs with skepticism.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information but will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.