Pig butchering scam

How it works

The name describes fattening the victim before the slaughter. Contact starts with a wrong-number text or a dating match, warms into a relationship, then turns to talk of easy crypto gains on a platform the scammer recommends. Early small withdrawals work, to build confidence; once the victim invests heavily, the funds vanish. The platform is a fake exchange, often impersonating or invoking a known brand for credibility.

Operations are large, organized, and increasingly use deepfakes and scripts.

How it relates to brand impersonation

Pig butchering leans on impersonation at two points: the persona that builds trust and the branded-looking platform that takes the money. Removing the fake platforms and lookalike domains disrupts the payout stage.

How nebty helps

nebty takes down the fake platforms and lookalike domains these scams use to impersonate real crypto and finance brands, on demand. See our crypto brand protection page.

How to recognise the long con

Pig butchering is distinguished by patience. It rarely opens with a hard sell; it opens with a wrong-number text, a friendly message, or a dating match, and the scammer invests weeks building rapport before money is ever mentioned. The investment talk arrives as a tip between friends, on a platform the scammer just happens to recommend, and early small withdrawals are allowed to work, which is the move that earns trust before the larger deposit disappears. The signs are the shape of the relationship, not a single message: a stranger who steers a warm conversation toward crypto gains, a platform you can only reach through their link, and pressure to invest more or pay a fee to withdraw. The fake platform at the centre is usually a fake exchange, often invoking a known brand, and those sites and their lookalike domains can be taken down.