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A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

arxiv.org

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Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#61

Post by [deleted] »

giveita wrote: post #59
mothballed wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always verify a wire details through an initiated call to a verified number of the legitimate institution in question. My country has AML law, but all the time people are tricked into wiring money to scammer for a house or something else because they take wire details by spoofed e-mail or a received phone call. The scammers are very clever, they will monitor e-mail from a title company or some other company with larg…

Correct. There is more verification buying a beer at some pubs than sending $1m.

[deleted]

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#62

Post by shireboy »

wiether wrote: post #10

Didn't know the meaning of "pig-butchering scam", so I took it at its front value and was a bit confused.

I did same at first but then recognized it as something that has affected family members. Would be nice to find a name that is a little more respectful to the victims. I can tell you victims already have guilt/shame for falling for these things. I would send them the article but don’t want to call them “pigs” on top of what they have already suffered

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#63

Post by [deleted] »

Theodores wrote: post #5

My dad passed away about three weeks after being fully pig-butchered, losing all of his money and reputation with family/friends. We all tried to talk him out of it, but it was like he joined a cult, for he cut us off and lost his mind. The whole sorry saga is very hard to live with. The sums of money were vast, cocaine addiction would have been a more cost effective way to go. The pig-butchers had some type of bot/A…

[deleted]

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#64

Post by jiggawatts »

pavlov wrote: post #57
karel-3d wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also buy 5 different official Donald Trump cryptocurrencies, too. It's not that useless.

Someone might argue that Donald Trump's political career is the most successful pig-butchering scam in the history of the world.

I knew some Scientologists in the late nineties, and there are many parallels. Ironically, they were also devout Christians, and one later became a priest.

Something very eye opening is know precisely who L Ron Hubbard is, what kind of person he was, and nonetheless seeing a real religion building up around him made me realise that all of the major religions must have started similarly.

Watching Trump's followers turning MAGA into a new political religion gives me the same heavy feeling of dismay.

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#65

Post by mothballed »

jiggawatts wrote: post #64
pavlov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone might argue that Donald Trump's political career is the most successful pig-butchering scam in the history of the world.

I knew some Scientologists in the late nineties, and there are many parallels. Ironically, they were also devout Christians, and one later became a priest. Something very eye opening is know precisely who L Ron Hubbard is, what kind of person he was, and nonetheless seeing a real religion building up around him made me realise that all of the major religions must have started similarly. Watching Trump's followers tur…

Politics in general has a lot of parallels to religion.

People need to segment into belief groups, and politics is the new church.

Only this church is a popularity game to decide who controls a vast federal standing domestic army of armed police, as well as an outward projecting armed forces. The scary thing is that everyone seems to believe their church is correct, and willing to employ the machine of violence to enforce it.

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#67

Post by mothballed »

smusamashah wrote: post #13
qnleigh wrote: post #6

I got sucked into reading this paper, and it has completely changed my perception of these scams. They are incredibly thorough and realistic. Here are some quotes that drove this home for me. "The bond phase showed that scammers had tremendous patience; this phase lasted anywhere from 3 to 11 months before the scammer moved on to the next stage of the scam." "When I spoke to her on a video call, it was the same perso…

3 to 11 months is long enough. I wonder if higher level scaammers spend even longer for even higher rewards, years instead of months for the momey. At that point it should be a much higher purpose/agenda but I guess these timespans must be happening too.

Most motorcycle gangs require a 1 year hang around, plus the introduced person has to be known for at least a year.

The conventional wisdom is to wait 2 years to marry someone, and 1 year at the absolute bare minimum if you are old or at the edge of the fertility window or in some extenuating circumstance.

This seems somewhat confirmed by the fact it outlives the measure of these long-running scams. Perhaps the conventional wisdom is correct.

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#68

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

sema4hacker wrote: post #4

I'm surprised that so many of the 26 participants in the paper's study were young and well-educated, with a mean age of 48. I would have guessed a much older group of victims.

I know an engineer in his 30s who had a “girlfriend” somewhere in Asia and he would send her money regularly. They had been “together” for 2 years but never met. He even knew that something was probably wrong but did it anyways out of desperation.

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#69

Post by em500 »

karel-3d wrote: post #35
Theodores wrote: post #5

My dad passed away about three weeks after being fully pig-butchered, losing all of his money and reputation with family/friends. We all tried to talk him out of it, but it was like he joined a cult, for he cut us off and lost his mind. The whole sorry saga is very hard to live with. The sums of money were vast, cocaine addiction would have been a more cost effective way to go. The pig-butchers had some type of bot/A…

They are using actual slaves, not "wage slaves". They kidnap people, lured for work in Thailand, and take them to Myanmar/Burma, where there is a civil war ongoing and a form of lawlessness; while there is a relatively good internet connectivity and electricity. They beat people and force them to do this. It's mostly run by Chinese. (But they scam Chinese too. It originated as scamming older single Chinese ladies, ac…

> It's mostly run by Chinese. (But they scam Chinese too. It originated as scamming older single Chinese ladies, actually.)

This comment suggests that the main target would be non-Chinese, with some incidental Chinese targets/victims. I think the reality is the opposite, and that the primary targets are Chinese, with some incidental Western victims, for the simple reason that both the perpetrators and the (involutary) scam workers are largely far more fluent in Chinese and knowlegable about Chinese financial systems, culture, etc.

Both in mainland China and other countries with large ethnic Chinese populations, there is quite some awareness and media information these issues, e.g.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Bets

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/323544...

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/08/30/1078663/pig-butc...

p.s.: From casual conversations with European friends, there are probably smaller scale "native" versions of such scams in many Western countries. Large scam centers with imprissoned workers might be somewhat specific to Chinese/Cambodia.

Re: A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

#70

Post by gadders »

I got one of those scam texts last week that begin with "Dad save my new number..." it then escalated to where they asked for money.

(I knew it wasn't genuine as I'm still paying for my daughter's cellphone)

Anyway, I played a long for a bit but finally told them that I knew it wasn't genuine as my daughter is not that polite when she asks for money.

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