Unlike traditional romance scams, which tend to prey on older adults, targets of crypto fraud skew younger. The FBI would not comment on Tsai’s case or confirm whether the agency was investigating it. The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency makes it almost impossible for victims to recover their funds, Setera noted, “because unlike traditional bank transfers where a transaction can remain pending for days before settlement, cryptocurrency funds are immediately transferred.” “These websites are often either an impersonation of a legitimate trading website, or a fraudulently created one,” Kristen Setera, a spokesperson for the Boston division of the FBI, said in a statement. Victims learn they’ve been swindled when they discover they are unable to cash out their supposed investments. Posing as successful investors, scammers eventually persuade their victims to buy increasing amounts of cryptocurrency, with instructions for transferring their assets to a phony exchange website they control. The scheme Tsai fell for is believed to have originated in China, where it’s known as the “ pig-butchering scam.” Unwitting victims are figuratively “fattened up” - complimented, courted, and doted on for weeks - before ultimately being led to financial slaughter.Įxperts say con artists seek out their victims on popular dating apps, like Hinge and Tinder, and social media sites, such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Quora, before steering their conversations to the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp.
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