What is a "pig butchering" scam, and why is it also called romance baiting?
The name comes from fattening pigs before slaughter, and Interpol now urges a different term because the old one may stop victims coming forward.
▶ Start the storyA pig-butchering scam, also called romance baiting, is online relationship and investment fraud: someone cultivates a fake romantic or friendly relationship with the victim, then persuades them to invest money, often in a fraudulent scheme. The name comes from an analogy comparing the first phase, gaining the victim's trust, to fattening pigs before slaughtering them. In 2024 Interpol recommended the term "romance baiting" instead, considering "pig butchering" unhelpfully and likely to deter victims from coming forward.
The scam started in 2016 or earlier as a regional scam in China and spread across Southeast Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic. The investment is usually a fake: a website designed to look like a legitimate trading platform, sometimes showing apparent initial returns to create a false sense of legitimacy. Scammers may pressure the victim to invest quickly, claim difficulties in withdrawing funds, and try to isolate the victim from loved ones, who might otherwise realize what is going on.
The sums can be large. The US tax agency, the IRS, notes that losses often reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, with some victims losing as much as $2 million. The firm estimated that fraud totaled about US$12.4 billion in 2024 and said pig-butchering scams grew year over year. In Kansas, the 2023 failure of a small bank, Heartland Tri-State Bank, may have been tied to a pig-butchering scam: its CEO was found to have $47 million.
Step 1: Contact
A friendly or romantic stranger online
Step 2: Trust
Weeks of conversation
Step 3: A "sure thing"
A fake trading site with early returns
Step 4: Pressure
Invest more; withdrawals "blocked"
The people sending the messages are often victims too: typically they were lured abroad under false pretenses to a , trafficked, and forced to commit the fraud by organized crime gangs.
US dating-app users who reported exposure to this fraud
| Share of dating-app users | |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 5% |
| Oct 2023 | 12% |
Quiz me
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Recap
Trust first, investment second, pressure third, and the platform is fake from the start.
💡 A trick to remember it · Fatten with friendship, then slaughter with a "sure thing": the kindness is the bait, the app is the trap.
Surprising fact · Interpol recommended calling it "romance baiting" in 2024 because "pig butchering" may stigmatize victims.
Connects to
- 💔 How do romance scams work, and how much do they cost?
- 🏢 What are the scam compounds of Southeast Asia, and why are workers forced to run scams?
- 🎪 What is a Ponzi scheme, and how did Madoff run one for decades?
- ✉️ What is the "Nigerian prince" scam, and why does it still work?
- 🪙 How did an anonymous white paper turn into money nobody controls?
- Confidence trick
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (18 claims) cites at least one of these.