“Pig Butchering”

Trust is one of the most powerful and dangerous currencies that we have. Whether it's a phishing email, a romance scam or a human trafficking operation, the criminals behind it exploit some of the same dynamics; mainly that trust can be earned by playing to our emotions.

This is particularity true when it comes to this episode’s topic; the global crime of "pig butchering". The scam involves luring victims into fake romantic relationships, convincing them to invest in cryptocurrency schemes, and then stealing their money through fake investment platforms. It’s worth to add that the term is a violent term for a violent crime, and that financial grooming might be more fitting description.

This week’s guest, Erin West, spent 26 years as a district attorney, and the last few years she’s been exclusively working on these kinds of scams. She’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal about her work, testified before Congress and started her own non-profit (Operation Shamrock) focusing on educating about and disrupting transnational organised crime.

Erin explains how Chinese organised crime uses high-tech methods, including cryptocurrency, to defraud victims of their life savings, the link to human trafficking, and the surprising scale of it all.