Crime and National Security

Pig Butchering: Investigation of Crypto Scam

Inca Digital is leading an investigation into 3,000 entities participating in an investment scam known as “Pig Butchering”. Inca Digital’s NLP identified illicit funds and scam-affiliated addresses across three blockchains: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron. Inca Digital estimates $10B in losses due to Pig Butchering fraud.

Inca Digital’s NLP identified thousands of shell companies originating out of China. Inca Digital’s investigations team then found structure operations, company documents and manuals, and extremely successful operation in the Chinese-speaking world.

Victims are groomed for 1-3 months before initiating the scam. Chinese scammers call this “raising a pig before slaughter.” The scammers operate like a well structured corporation, have head offices and branch locations, divide labor between IT, communications, and finance. Employees in the scam are salaried, receive time-off, and scammers receive 20-40% commissions for successful “slaughters”.

New scam employees receive psychological training in order to prepare them to adequately manipulate their victims, known as “pigs”. They even have training manuals that they update. It guides them on, among other things, how to create their fake character, to include personal details like hobbies, favorite music, etc.

Inca Digital identified Carrod Securities as being a part of the Pig Butchering Scam on several social media platforms via our NLP data analytics.

Read our presentation for more information. It contains numbers and amounts pertaining only to the Ethereum blockchain, and only one of the thousands of entities we have identified as having the same pattern of operations.

Read The Washington Post coverage of the crypto scam.

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