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Analysis of "Pig-Butchering Scam" Type of Network Fraud from the Legal Perspective

Fu, Zhenglang (2024) — Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media

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DOI: 10.54254/2753-7048/2024.bo17841 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   China
Tags:   AI-Enabled Fraud, AI Face Voice Change, China, Criminal Law, Cross Border Crime, Pig Butchering, Romance Scams, Sentencing, Telecom Network Fraud, Victim Experience
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Synopsis

            
This paper examines pig-butchering scams (Sha Zhu Pan) from a legal perspective, focusing on their causes, operation, challenges for China’s legal system, and possible countermeasures. Pig-butchering scams are distinguished from traditional online fraud by their long grooming cycles, organized teamwork, and cross-border operations. Offenders invest significant time in building false romantic or friendship-based relationships with victims, ultimately luring them into fake investment or gambling schemes. The resulting harm is both financial and psychological, with broader impacts on social stability. The study identifies three main reasons for the high incidence of pig-butchering scams: Privacy leakage – widespread sale of personal data enables precise targeting of victims, often middle-aged, emotionally vulnerable individuals with financial means. Evolving techniques – fraudsters adopt new methods such as AI-driven face-swapping and voice alteration to strengthen deception. Cross-border complexity – syndicates operate from overseas (notably Southeast Asia), placing equipment and personnel beyond the immediate reach of Chinese law enforcement. The fraud process follows three stages: “pig hunting” (identifying and contacting victims), “pig raising” (building trust and dependency), and “pig killing” (exploiting trust to extract money, then abandoning the victim). Compared with traditional scams, pig-butchering schemes are longer in duration, more psychologically manipulative, and harder to detect. The analysis highlights legal challenges in China. First, there is no dedicated legal classification for online telecom fraud; most cases are prosecuted under general fraud provisions (Criminal Law Article 266). This creates inconsistencies, as pig-butchering scams often involve multiple overlapping offenses and organized crime elements. Second, sentencing is uneven across regions, with differing standards despite attempts to unify thresholds for fraud amounts. Third, enforcement often punishes low-level actors without dismantling syndicate leadership, allowing scams to persist and evolve. To address these issues, the paper proposes several legal and policy reforms: Strengthen privacy protections and regulate third-party data handling to reduce victim targeting. Enhance international cooperation to tackle the cross-border nature of pig-butchering syndicates. Establish telecom fraud as a separate criminal charge, with sentencing that reflects the organized, large-scale, and emotionally exploitative nature of these crimes. Standardize sentencing rules nationwide to avoid disparities, considering not only the fraud amount but also factors like victim numbers, duration, and methods used. Leverage technological tools for fraud detection and prevention, enabling law enforcement to keep pace with rapidly evolving tactics. The paper concludes that pig-butchering scams represent a serious and escalating cybercrime problem. Effective countermeasures will require unified legal frameworks, stronger cross-border enforcement, and improved technological and public awareness strategies.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
China lacks specific judicial interpretations and legal norms tailored to network fraud and pig-butchering scams. Existing rules leave conviction, organized-group liability, and sentencing insufficiently standardized. The rapid evolution of fraud methods also makes accurate, comprehensive legislative and judicial coverage difficult.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
Qualitative legal and policy analysis of pig-butchering network fraud in China. The paper describes its causes, three-stage operation process, and characteristics; reviews relevant criminal-law provisions, notices, opinions, and past-case analysis; then identifies legal dilemmas and advances legislative, sentencing, technological, privacy, and cross-border enforcement measures.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The article is a doctrinal/legal discussion based on legal searches, past-case analysis, and cited literature. It reports no original dataset, sampling strategy, victim interviews, case counts, or empirical evaluation of the proposed measures; therefore, claims about prevalence, victims, and effectiveness are not independently tested in the text.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Strengthen anti-fraud/prevention research and continuously improve information-network technology to counter rapidly evolving methods. Further legal and judicial work is needed to achieve unified conviction and sentencing standards across localities.

          

              

    
    

        
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