Investors continue to get roasted in pig-butchering schemes

investmentnews.com:

Alabama investors are the latest to fall victim to so-called pig-butchering investment schemes that state securities regulators say are becoming an increasing threat.

The Alabama Securities Commission announced Friday that it had issued a cease-and-desist order against two fake cryptocurrency websites and their creators, James Yeh and Kenju Go. The Alabama regulator said the men had duped investors into depositing funds into accounts on their sites after tricking them into believing the operations were legitimate.

The scammers used a technique regulators call pig butchering. A scammer contacted an Alabama investor initially through a dating website and then continued the conversation on WhatsApp, delving into the investor’s finances, the Alabama regulator said.

Over the course of the scam, the investor deposited $725,000 into an account on one fake crypto website — BATCNAP — and then to another — BATCIPE — when the initial site became inoperable. The investor was told that the investment had grown to $7.5 million. But a withdrawal request was answered with a message that the investor owed $775,000 in personal income tax and had to make more cryptocurrency deposits.

Alabama investigators found that Yeh and Go created 948 websites and left a trail of 88 victims nationwide who lost more than $22.5 million.

“The scam is called pig butchering because the fraudster continually feeds you information as they fatten the victims with excitement and the promises of great investment returns,” Amanda Senn, director of the Alabama Securities Commission, said in the statement. “The best way to protect yourself from this investment scam is to never give out personal or financial information to strangers, especially when they contact you