Pig butchering
Also called pig-butchering scam, scam centre, scam compound
A long investment scam, often run from industrial scam centres, where a new online friend slowly persuades you into a fake crypto platform.
The name comes from the scammers themselves: fatten the pig, then slaughter it. Over weeks or months, someone builds a friendship or romance with you, mentions how well their crypto trading is going, and helps you start small on a platform that looks real. Early "profits" grow, and you invest more, until the money can't come out.
Behind many of these chats are compounds in Southeast Asia, now spreading to other regions, where the UN says hundreds of thousands of people, many trafficked, work scripts all day. The UN estimates the centres make close to 40 billion dollars a year.
AI fits the work uncomfortably well. Most of it is scripted conversation, and researchers found that writing and translating those chats is easy to hand to a language model.
For example
A friendly stranger shares tips for months, you make small "profits" on their app, then a big deposit can never be withdrawn.
Put it to use
Where you'll meet pig butchering in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, how to use it there, and the mix-up most people make.
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