Page 32 - WBG August 2024

FEATURE These are big-time scams, backed by big-time operations. Job seekers are offered competitive salaries, lucrative
They run like them too. They have dev and design teams that
benefits, paid travel expenses as well as room and board.
create legit-looking finance apps. They have even further
Often throughout the process, the location for the position
is shifted from the advertised location. Upon job seekers’
trappings of a large, legitimate company, including support,
arrival in the foreign country, criminal actors use multiple
customer service, accounting, and the like to manage
transactions. Then they have their front-line operatives, the
means to coerce them to commit cryptocurrency investment
schemes, such as confiscation of passports and travel
people doing the texting and messaging.
documents, threat of violence, and use of violence. The
iv
However, many of these front-line scammers do it against
victims.
their will. An even darker aspect of pig butchering scams
reveals itself when you discover who does the actual dirty cruel fact of pig butchering scams is this: victims victimize
work. As reported by the FBI, these front-line scammers are Meanwhile, organized crime operations get rich. One piece
often human trafficking victims: of academic research traced $75.3 billion to one suspected
pig butchering network alone between 2020 and 2024 .v
Criminal actors target victims, primarily in Asia, in
employment fraud schemes by posting false job In the U.S., the FBI points to $2.57 billion in cryptocurrency
advertisements on social media and online employment and pig butchering fraud reports in 2022.vi As always with
sites. The schemes cover a wide range of opportunities, such figures, many losses go unreported. That figure climbs
to include tech support, call center customer service, and much higher. Yet higher still when it accounts for victims
beauty salon technicians. worldwide.

Source: Mcafee https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/internet-security/what-are-pig-butchering-scams-and-how-do-they-work/

WAD Mid-Term 2025
LISBON

April 30 – May 4, 2025

Hotel Tivoli Avenida Liberdade Lisboa

30 W.A.D Beyond Global