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Scammers Use Financial Grooming, Known as ‘Pig Butchering,’ to Steal Victims’ Savings

The terrible term describes a key tactic for criminals perpetrating investment and romance scams

10-minute read

Part of Series: Investment Fraud

Ken Budd,

Updated September 01, 2026

AARP

En español

Updated September 01, 2026

a figure looks at a phone, surrounded by text message bubbles

Jon Krause

Key takeaways

Financial grooming scams build trust over weeks or months before steering victims into bogus investments, often involving cryptocurrency.
Reported theft from investment scams reached $8.6 billion in 2025, although the true toll is likely much higher.
Warning signs include unsolicited messages, pressure to keep investments secret, early affection, and requests to move conversations to private messaging apps,

Her name, she said, was Jessie. Dennis Jones, 82, met her on Facebook. The divorced, beloved grandfather and father had chatted online with Jessie for months, and he felt close to her, even though they’d never met in person. On a family vacation, he revealed to his son and daughter that he was exploring a major cryptocurrency investment opportunity. But the investment, and the friendship, were frauds. Jones invested his life savings — and Jessie still pressed him for more money. He was financially ruined. Soon after, a distraught Jones died by suicide.

“There wasn’t enough [money left] even to pay for his headstone,” Jones’s daughter Laura said on a recent episode of the AARP podcast The Perfect Scam.

This story isn’t unusual, unfortunately. Jones was the victim of a financial grooming scam, often known as pig butchering. It’s perpetrated by transnational crime syndicates that enslave frontline scammers through human trafficking to target Americans and others. From the initial point of contact, the perpetrator slowly builds a friendship over weeks and months that evolves into a trusting relationship, sometimes becoming romantic. Inevitably, they will share that they are making a lot of money on a certain investment platform. Maybe you’d be interested in giving it a try?

“Pig butchering” comes from “shā zhū pán,” a Chinese mob term that means fattening a pig before slaughter. Given the term’s crudeness, AARP refers to it as “financial grooming.” INTERPOL calls it “romance baiting.” And it's a serious, growing problem.

A growing criminal enterprise

Reported theft from investment scams, fueled by financial grooming, rose to $8.6 billion in 2025, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). That’s up almost $3 billion from the previous year, but still likely only a fraction of actual thefts because fraud is notoriously underreported.

They can be devastating. A Louisville man, for example, recently had more than $1 million stolen after he clicked on a pop-up ad offering a free book about AI, according to local news reports. The link led to a chat with a stranger, who spent time building trust with the man and eventually drew him into a bogus investment scheme. When he tried to withdraw his money, the criminals told him he had to pay fees to do so.

“My inbox is flooded with emails,” says Erin West, a former deputy district attorney in Santa Clara County, California, who spent five years focusing on battling financial grooming (or pig butchering) and, in some cases, managing to get the stolen money back to victims. She’s since founded a nonprofit called Operation Shamrock, dedicated to preventing these scams.

“I hear from [victims] even though [Operation Shamrock] is not a reporting platform," West says. "By the time they get to me, they’re desperate, and nobody has helped them.”

Victims on all sides

These scams began in 2019 in countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia, when the Chinese mafia converted dormant casinos (because of the pandemic) into scam centers, says Kathy Stokes, senior director of fraud prevention for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. The fraud rapidly expanded and is now migrating to other parts of the world. And the scam victims aren’t the only victims: “Hundreds of thousands of people forced to run these scams are being enslaved,” says Stokes, referring to the slave encampments holding workers who have been lured by employment scams to compounds where their passports are stolen, and are often beaten or tortured if they fail to meet scam quotas, according to anti-trafficking organization Destiny Rescue.

The United Nations reported at a June 2026 conference on transnational organized crime that while Southeast Asia remains a major hub, “scam centres are increasingly being replicated in, at least, the Middle East and Gulf States, East, West and Southern Africa, the Pacific island countries and territories, and Latin America and the Caribbean, following the same model of exploitation.”

The organized crime syndicates, often based in China, that run the compounds are “bent on stealing everything from their victims,” says Stokes. “They’re stealing generational wealth. People are dying by suicide.”

(Find out more about human trafficking and scams on this episode of AARP's The Perfect Scam.)

What financial grooming looks like

Financial groomers are masters of manipulation. Using a fake online persona, they will contact the target through a dating app, social media platform, or an unsolicited message, such as a wrong-number text (the recipient will respond with something like, “You have the wrong number,” and a conversation ensues). Then, there will be a long get-to-know-you period, where the victim is convinced that they’ve established a new romance or friendship before the criminals reveal an amazing investment opportunity. Usually, it involves cryptocurrency, but it could be gold bars or other commodities, Stokes says.

Because victims may be reluctant at first, scammers often start by suggesting small, low-risk investments and providing fake returns. Victims see fabricated profit reports and testimonials, and “highly polished documents, websites, or links to what appear to be legitimate investment platforms,” West warns. “They will tell you to open accounts on online investment websites and instruct you to deposit money via wire transfer to shell companies, or direct transfers on legitimate virtual asset service providers (VASPs) or cryptocurrency exchanges,” according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The criminals also apply psychological pressure. They might urge quick action (you’ll make less money if you wait, they’ll say). Once you invest, scammers will push you to invest more money and use money-laundering tactics to move digital assets “across multiple jurisdictions and exchanges, making them nearly impossible to track,” according to TRM Labs, a company that helps financial institutions and government agencies investigate financial crimes. You’ll likely encounter issues ranging from hidden fees to difficulties withdrawing money. After the victim's finances are drained, the scammer vanishes.

Why financial grooming is successful

Criminals are “selling victims a dream,” as West puts it — and it’s an enticing mix of love and wealth.

“That dream looks plausible, because [the scammer] is investing a huge amount of time and energy into this relationship. You might get calls and texts — mostly texts — four hours a day and receive tons of pictures,” she says. One woman told West that she’d received 560 pictures from her scammer. “It’s easy to fall for the dream of, ‘I could have this fantastic relationship, and I could also use this proven technique for making money in cryptocurrency.’”

The criminal may also threaten to end the relationship if the victim doesn’t invest.

“They are using the same techniques used in cult-like situations,” West says. “They are isolating the victims and leading them to believe that only they can be trusted.”

Stokes says they are trying to get targets “under the ether,” which means “getting them into a heightened emotional state, getting them excited, and to trust the person that’s engaging with them. A lot of people who have experienced fraud will say, ‘Looking back, I felt like I was in some kind of trance.’ It’s because these criminals are getting our brains to not filter things logically, but to go right to an emotional response.”

How to protect yourself

Some ways to stay safe:

1. Research investments. “Never invest in something that you do not completely understand,” says scam expert Steve Weisman, founder of Scamicide.com. Do your homework. Stokes recommends the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website, investor.gov, which offers advice for new and inexperienced investors.

2. Talk to a financial advisor. If the investment is legitimate, consulting an investment advisor shouldn’t be an issue. But criminals will tell you not to do this. They’ll say, “Don’t tell anybody about this,” or emphasize that you can only trust them. That’s a good sign that you should talk to someone else.

3. Ignore out-of-the-blue communications. If you receive a call, email, or text from someone you don’t know — or a message on social media — don’t respond. "We need to believe that everyone that is entering our lives digitally is a scammer unless proven otherwise,” says West. Also, be wary of people “who can seemingly never meet in person,” the U.S. Secret Service advises.

4. Avoid messaging platforms. If your new friend wants to move your conversation to a messaging service like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal, that’s a red flag. The reason: Many dating apps and social media platforms are on the lookout for financial grooming, so the criminals want to talk on platforms where they can’t be watched.

5. Watch for early affection. Scammers use proven, well-tested scripts. One tactic: “Within a matter of days, they’re using cute names, calling the victim ‘honey’ and ‘my love,’” says West. “You would not expect to be saying these kind of words of love in just a matter of weeks.” It’s called love bombing, and it’s a serious red flag for a romance scammer.

6. Conduct a reverse image search. This is an online tool that reveals information such as when and where a photo was taken, and where it appears online. With Google Image Search, for example, you can click its camera icon and then drag or upload an image. Why do it? Criminals re-use images on fake company websites. The CEO on one site might appear as the treasurer on another site or the head of HR on a third site, all with different names. (Here's more information on how to do a reverse image search.)

7. Research the apps. Fake companies also have fake apps. Apps used in financial grooming scams may seem legitimate, but they’re not typically on app platforms such as Google Play or Apple’s App Store, Weisman notes.

8. Share your experiences. If you’re using social media or a dating app, “report suspicious user profiles to the site administrator and cease all contact with suspicious users,” IC3 recommends. Victims of financial grooming scams should report their cases to local law enforcement and the FBI at IC3.gov.

You can also reach out to the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline (877-908-3360) for free advice and support.

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The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Ken Budd has written for National Geographic Traveler, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine and many more. He is the author of a memoir, The Voluntourist.