Pig-Butchering Scam Statistics
Reported losses and complaint volumes for pig-butchering (sha zhu pan) crypto investment fraud, drawn from FBI IC3 and DOJ sources.
Last reviewed: 1 June 2026
Pig-butchering scams — known in Mandarin as sha zhu pan (slaughtering the pig) — combine romantic grooming with fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms. Organised crime syndicates, often operating from forced-labour compounds in Southeast Asia, run operations that build fake relationships with victims over weeks or months before steering them to fake trading apps that appear to show growing profits.
Because victims often do not report out of shame — or because they do not recognise that the romantic relationship was itself part of the fraud — actual loss figures are believed to be a substantial multiple of official complaint totals. The FBI launched a specific counter-operation (Operation Level Up) in 2024 precisely because the scale had become so large.
Key figures
$5.8 billion in losses across 41,557 complaints in 2024 — a 47% increase over 2023
US crypto investment fraud (primarily pig-butchering) losses reported to FBI IC3
Source: FBI IC3 2024 Annual Internet Crime Report (2024)
8,103 victims notified; 77% were unaware they were being defrauded at the time of contact
Victims notified and unaware they were being scammed — FBI Operation Level Up
Source: FBI Operation Level Up — official FBI fact sheet (2024)
Approximately $511 million in estimated potential further losses avoided through proactive victim outreach
Estimated savings from FBI Operation Level Up victim notifications
Source: FBI Operation Level Up — official FBI fact sheet (2024)
Key takeaways
- Pig-butchering crypto investment fraud cost US victims a reported $5.8 billion in 2024, making it the single largest loss category tracked by the FBI IC3.
- The FBI's Operation Level Up found that 77% of the pig-butchering victims it proactively contacted were still unaware they were being defrauded — illustrating how effective the grooming phase is.
- Organised crime syndicates in Southeast Asia, sometimes using trafficked workers, run pig-butchering operations at industrial scale across multiple countries simultaneously.
- Under-reporting is severe: because the initial contact is romantic and victims feel shame, most incidents never reach any official reporting system.
Frequently asked questions
What makes pig-butchering scams different from ordinary romance scams?
Traditional romance scams extract money through requests (emergency funds, travel costs). Pig-butchering scams go further: the criminal builds a fake relationship and then introduces a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platform that shows fabricated profits. Victims willingly transfer increasingly large sums, believing they are building wealth, and the fraud is often only discovered when they try to withdraw and are told to pay further fees.