“Slaughter of Pigs”: Warning of a New Cryptocurrency Scam

The Nova Scotia Securities Commission warned Monday that a new cryptocurrency scam has cost several Canadians and Americans hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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The modus operandi of this so-called “pig slaughter” scheme is aimed first and foremost at developing a relationship of trust with the victim. The latter is ordered first by SMS, e-mail or on social networks.

Once the relationship starts well, the scammer convinces the victim to invest in cryptocurrency. After some time, he sends her a fake “statement of account” which shows amazing profits. This part of the scheme is called “fattening the pig” and aims to convince the victim to invest more money.

When the victim tries to withdraw money from their crypto account, the scammer tells them they have to pay taxes or fees to complete this transaction, but they end up disappearing.

In addition, the fraudster gains access to the victim’s banking data by asking them to install commercial applications, which will allow him to steal more money from the victim.

The scam eventually ends when the scammer impersonates someone else and tells her that she can get her money back if she pays a fee. “This is known as the clawback scam and returns the original victim,” the Nova Scotia Securities Commission said in a statement.

In most cases, victims of this type of fraud never get their money back.

Commission Chair Paul Radford said: “While there are always scammers coming up with new schemes, these so-called ‘piggy-slaughter’ scams involving crypto assets are becoming widespread and claiming numerous victims, many with significant losses.” Extremely.

The latter also indicated that more than $1 billion has been lost in this type of fraud in North America since 2021.

The Nova Scotia Securities Commission added that the best way to protect yourself from this type of scam is to know how to identify them in order to avoid them.