The scam starts with befriending a victim, building trust, and then asking them to invest, oftentimes in cryptocurrency.
HOUSTON, Texas — There’s a new type of scam that’s raking in the dollars for criminals. It’s gotten so big that it now has the attention of the FBI.
“We traditionally worked the elder fraud and romance scam cases,” said Alex Rayas, an FBI special agent, who says those old scams have a new twist.
The FBI calls this new scam the “pig butchering scam.”
How it works — a stranger befriends you, builds your trust, and then asks you to make an investment promising a big return. Oftentimes, it’s in cryptocurrency.
It can start with a simple text like, “How are you?”
“It’s just a lot of people behind a computer and a phone making just calls and texts and just seeing which person bites,” Raya said.
“There are people who have made money, who’ve become rich off of it. But there’s also a potential for it to be used in an illicit manner,” said Cindy Quintanilla, an FBI forensic accountant.
She said the bad guys can go to great lengths to make your investment look real.
“These are fake websites that show fake balances, and so people need to make sure that they know who they’re investing with,” Quintanilla said.
The FBI says another red flag, asking you to convert cash to cryptocurrency.
“There’s even, here in Houston if you Google, Bitcoin ATM’s,” said Rayas. “You can go and just input cash and it’ll send funds via digital currency to whoever is telling you to do that.”
Rayas said the chances of getting your money back aren’t good.
“The best thing you can do is report it as soon as possible at least so it can be identified as quickly as possible so that maybe we can do something on our end,” he said.
You can contact the Houston office of the FBI, by clicking here.
If you have a problem and need help, email GraceCanHelp@khou.com, call (713) 521-HELP or fill out the form below.
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