New Yorkers need to stop conflating love with money.
Scammers are increasingly using dating apps, social media and unsolicited text messages to convince New York residents to make fake investments, often in cryptocurrency.
In this practice, known as “pig slaughter,” perpetrators befriend their victims and fatten them up with elaborate stories before murdering them and financially slaughtering them.
State Attorney General Letitia James said, Online romance scams Due to the increasing number of infections in New York.
“New Yorkers who have fallen victim to these scams should know they are not alone,” James said.
Two-thirds of crypto-related complaints received by James’ office involve such online crimes, a spokesperson said, but declined to provide specific figures or examples.
Scammers typically spend time conning their victims into believing they are in a romantic or other intimate relationship before discussing a business transaction or investment opportunity.
After a virtual meeting between the victim and the scammer, the conversation often moves to encrypted chat platforms such as WhatsApp or WeChat to hide the perpetrator’s true identity.
James said victims have been scammed out of amounts ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to more than $1 million, often after depositing funds into the scammers’ platforms.
Fraudulent crypto investment schemes A global billion-dollar industryThe Washington Post reported in March that fraudsters, many of whom were overseas, had stolen as much as $75 billion from investors’ digital wallets.
In May, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had indicted two Chinese nationals in a cryptocurrency scam that defrauded at least $73 million.
