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What is pig butchering?
Pig butchering is a long-running crypto investment scam. A stranger met online, often through a dating app or social media, builds a friendship or romance over weeks, then steers the victim to a fake investment platform that shows invented profits until the money is taken.
What it means for you
The fake platform can show growing profits, then demand "taxes" or "fees" before any withdrawal, and the money never arrives. Anyone you have not met in person who brings up crypto investing is the core warning sign. Crypto sent to these platforms is usually gone, and follow-up offers to recover it are often a second scam.
A common mistake: “I already withdrew a little, so the platform is real.”
In fact: FinCEN notes scammers may allow a small withdrawal precisely to build confidence before asking for larger deposits. A successful small withdrawal says nothing about whether the larger balance exists.
How it works
FinCEN describes the stages. Contact starts with a text or social media message, often posed as a wrong number or an old friend, or through dating and networking sites. Over weeks the scammer builds trust, then offers a crypto investment on a platform or app they control, sometimes a spoofed exchange domain. The platform shows invented returns and may allow a small withdrawal to build confidence. When deposits slow, the victim is told about losses to cover, or is asked for "taxes" or early-withdrawal fees before any money comes out. Then contact stops. Much of this outreach, FinCEN says, is run from Southeast Asia using trafficked workers.
Sources: FinCEN: Alert on the virtual currency investment scam known as pig butchering, FTC: What to know about cryptocurrency and scams, FinCEN Alert FIN-2023-Alert005: Prevalent virtual currency investment scam (pig butchering) · checked 4 October 2026
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Educational content, not financial advice. Written by hand and checked against the source named above. Something wrong? Tell us and we reply within two business days.