A shocking incident has surfaced from the United States where a woman has been duped of her savings into a crypto scam on a dating app. The woman fell prey to a scammer who posed himself as a French wine trader and lured her into fake love with loving chats and messages but ended up the same after the disturbing event, when she realized that she had lost $450,000 to him.The victim has been identified as Shreya Datta, 37, who has lost all her savings and retirement funds landing into debt following the fraudster.Heres what all happenedInitially, they both started chatting on the dating app Hinge, which simultaneously shifted to WhatsApp conversation. The man also deleted his profile from the dating app to gain her attention and to give her all his time. The scam began when the alleged scammer introduced Datta to a crypto trading app, which initially looked like a trustworthy option as it had two-factor authentication. She was then convinced to invest her all savings as she was able to take out profits in the beginning. Datta soon realized that there was something fishy when the platform demanded her tax details. The woman, who invested almost $450,000 (equivalent to Rs 36,922,477) informed the matter to FBI and secret services but did not receive any response from them.Datta who was under huge debt is currently undergoing therapy after the traumatized event.What is Pig butchering scamNitin Kamath, the founder of Zerodha recently warned about the Pig-Butchering scams. Romance scams or Sha zhu pan are other names for pig slaughtering scams. Pig butchering is the word used to describe the technique of emotionally fattening the victim before final financial deception. Despite the fact that these scams have been around for a while, their frequency has increased, especially during the Covid-19 outbreak.Kamath took his X handle make people aware of the scams, heres is what his tweet says:The scale of pig butchering scams in India runs into tens of thousands of crores. It is scary how many people fall for fake job offer scams, scammy high-return investment schemes and crypto investments, etc.As the name implies, a pig butchering scam involves fattening the… pic.twitter.com/x3ezkZrmHR— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) November 13, 2023Notably, Criminals carefully construct false identities and personas through dating apps, social media sites, and other online channels in order to gain the confidence and rapport of their victims. These connections, which are frequently developed over several weeks or even months, provide the groundwork for the eventual exploitation.
