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Chapter 10

Pig butchering

What you'll get from this chapter: How the most expensive investment scam in the United States begins with a friendly text, why it moves slowly on purpose, and the one point where you must stop.

About 2 min read

In this chapter
  1. Words in this chapter
  2. Your steps

Part II: Crypto Survival Kit · Chapter 3 of 9

Last reviewed: October 18, 2026

Two panels: a friendly letter with a pressed flower and heart charm, then a steel trap snapping shut on a dark ledger.

The largest investment fraud in the United States usually begins as an ordinary friendly text message.

Cryptocurrency investment fraud, much of it , cost Americans about $7.2 billion in reported losses in 2025.¹ The name comes from the scammers' own slang: they “fatten” the victim with attention before taking everything. FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, part of the U.S. Treasury) tied about $12.7 billion in suspicious digital-currency activity to overseas scam centers between September 2023 and December 2025.²

It is slow on purpose. It starts with a wrong-number text, a dating app, or a lonely chat. Then come weeks of warmth. Then a trading “platform” shows gains you cannot withdraw unless you deposit more. The chart is fake. The “friend” is often a worker in a scam compound, many of them trafficked and forced to read a script.¹

Wrong-number text, then weeks of friendship, a fake trading platform, a fee to withdraw, then the money is gone.Wrong-number text, then weeks of friendship, a fake trading platform, a fee to withdraw, then the money is gone.Wrong-number textWeeks of friendshipFake trading platform“Fee” to withdrawMoney goneWrong-number text, then weeks of friendship, a fake trading platform, a fee to withdraw, then the money is gone.Wrong-number text, then weeks of friendship, a fake trading platform, a fee to withdraw, then the money is gone.Wrong-number textWeeks of friendshipFake trading platform“Fee” to withdrawMoney gone
Wrong-number text, then weeks of friendship, a fake trading platform, a fee to withdraw, then the money is gone.

Artificial intelligence (AI) personas, translated chat, and video calls have made the relationship cheaper to fake. The FBI’s Operation Level Up has contacted more than 8,000 people who did not yet know they were being scammed.³

Some crypto scams skip the slow build and go straight to fear. The next chapter covers crypto ATM scams.

Words in this chapter

  • . A long scam that starts as friendship or romance and ends as a fake investment. The name is ugly because the criminal spends weeks “fattening” the target before asking for the large payment.
  • . Audio or video generated to imitate a real person’s voice or face. A familiar voice on the phone is no longer proof.

Your steps

Sources

¹ FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report (2026), complaint and loss tables. https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2025_IC3Report.pdf

² Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (U.S. Treasury), "FinCEN Identifies Nearly $13 Billion Linked to Suspected Digital Asset Scams Operated by Overseas Scam Centers" (September 3, 2026). https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-identifies-nearly-13-billion-linked-suspected-digital-asset-scams

³ Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Cryptocurrency and AI Scams Bilk Americans of Billions" (press release on the 2025 Internet Crime Report). https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/cryptocurrency-and-ai-scams-bilk-americans-of-billions

NEXT STEP

Open the Scam Scenarios drill in the Field Kit. Then continue to Chapter 11: Crypto ATM scams.

Margin notes