Crypto Romance Scams and Pig Butchering

Scharfman, Jason (2024) — The Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Fraud Casebook, Volume II

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-60836-0_2 (opens in a new tab)

Tags: AI-Enabled Fraud, Catfishing, Crypto Romance Scams, Cryptocurrency Fraud, Cryptorom, Elder Targeting, Elderly Targeting, Emotional Manipulation, Fake Profiles, Money Mules, Pig Butchering, Romance Scams

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Synopsis

This is a descriptive casebook chapter that synthesizes reported fraud statistics, regulatory and law-enforcement materials, media-reported cases, and illustrative scam examples. It outlines the historical development and typical stages of crypto romance scams, discusses named scam groups and victim cases, and contrasts romance scams with pig-butchering schemes. The author identifies education, transparency, and continued vigilance as remedies to curb cryptocurrency fraud growth. The book characterizes cryptocurrency crime as involving global organized crime, international law enforcement, evolving regulation, and jurisdictional challenges. The supplied text does not report a sampling frame, search strategy, inclusion criteria, or analytic protocol for its cited cases and secondary sources.

Identified Gaps

The supplied text describes scam anatomy, online channels, elderly targeting, and international scam groups, but does not present systematic estimates of prevalence by platform, comparative evidence on victim susceptibility, or evaluations of prevention and recovery measures. It also identifies cryptocurrency’s tracing and jurisdictional difficulties, supporting a need for evidence on cross-border disruption and victim redress.

Methods

Limitations

The supplied text does not report a sampling frame, search strategy, inclusion criteria, or analytic protocol for its cited cases and secondary sources. Consequently, its examples and aggregate figures are useful for descriptive threat mapping but cannot establish prevalence, causal risk factors, or the effectiveness of countermeasures. The available chapter text is also incomplete after the opening discussion of online dating scams.

Future Work

The text advocates continued education, transparency, and vigilance to curb cryptocurrency fraud. Research could assess which victim-facing education, platform safeguards, and cross-border investigative practices most effectively interrupt relationship-based crypto fraud and improve recovery outcomes.

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