![]() “Initially, when I was doing my research I wondered if one can actually trade Bitcoin options,” she said. But in the digital world, love plus crypto is a match made in scam heaven and it just creates a whole other avenue.” I'm not gonna send you my money.’ And he said that’s fine, just send it to the platform where I had my own account,” she said.ĭivya, who had some experience trading with Coinbase, researched the site and the method of investing Bulasa was suggesting, and it all seemed legit. “At first I was like, ‘hey, dude, I don't know you. Like in almost all the other schemes, as the online relationship grew,Bulasa induced her to transfer money to a seemingly legitimate crypto platform with promises of financial gains through cryptocurrency investments. “Bulasa sparked and built what appeared to be a deeply-held affection for, and interest in, one another,” according to the suit. Divya’s storyĭivya met “Jerry Bulasa” on Tinder and began communicating frequently over WhatsApp, according to her lawsuit filed against three individuals, two banks, and two crypto platforms. PJ Jenkins, a retired police officer in New Jersey lost $15,000 to “Alice,” a scammer he met on Hinge and began a months-long relationship before investing in cryptocurrency. Steve Belcher, a software engineer in Denver, says he lost $1.6 million after falling for a woman on a dating app. “Scammers pretend to be attractive and wealthy, always too busy to see you, have an excuse why they won’t video call, text daily, pretend to teach you crypto with a fake app they link you,” she wrote.Ĭindy Tsai, a Boston-area woman who was being treated for terminal cancer, says she met “Jimmy,” a local Asian American single on Whatsapp, who comforted her through her treatments, but then stole $2.4 million in crypto investments. “But hey, shit happens, and I’m trying my best not to blame myself or fall into a perpetual spiral of self-hate.”Ī Los Angeles woman who calls herself Velvet Kat, says she lost thousands to the scam. “I never thought in a million years I’d fall victim to a scam, especially through online dating,” she posted on YouTube. “A common factor among victims may simply be their unfamiliarity with how regulated brokers should work,”and having “large savings,” according to the Global Anti-Scam Organization, a non-profit advocacy group for pig butchering victims.Ĭynthia, a young Asian woman in Canada, says she lost all her savings to a pig butcher. In fact, statistics show 67% of the victims are single women between the ages 25 and 40, and most were highly educated and adept with modern technology. That the thieves managed to con Divya, an educated businesswoman in her 20s, speaks to the insidious nature of the plot, and to its highly organized and sophisticated methods. ![]() According to Divya’s lawsuit, “the offender showers the victim with messages of love and affection to emotionally ‘fatten them up’ – similar to fattening a pig …before enticing the victim to invest in a fake company and, metaphorically, slaughtering the victim.” This slaughter typically involves getting the victim to put real money into fake crypto investments. ![]() The con man – and it’s almost always a man – builds a months or weeks-long romantic relationship with the victim through online dating platforms such as Tinder, Grindr, and Bumble. The term “pig butchering” is from the Chinese “Shāzhūpán,” ( 殺豬盤 ) as the scheme apparently originated in China. ![]() “I’m generally a pretty sensible person,” Divya says. But Divya sadly might hold the record as the biggest loser to this growing type of swindle.Īuthorities say the average loss per victim of the scheme is around $180,000, but Divya, according to a lawsuit filed against one alleged pig butcher, saw more than $8 million in cryptocurrency disappear into the fraudulent void. fell victim to romance fraud and lost a total approaching $1 billion last year. According to the FBI, more than 20,000 people in the U.S. As a victim of a new, fast-growing type of crypto romance scheme called “pig butchering,” Divya (who asked to keep her last name private) has a lot of company.
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