'Pig butchering' a global human trafficking scam

It starts with a seemingly harmless text message:

Sender: Hi Kira, I’m hoping to make an appointment to get my dog Marvin groomed. Please let me know when.

Responder: I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number.

Nevertheless, the sender continues to chat, gaining the recipient’s trust until they hand over money.

This technique is called “pig butchering,” and it’s a form of scamming that is on the rise worldwide.

“These scammers are trying to fatten up their own payday by first starting a chat with their victims,” Cezary Podkul, a journalist with ProPublica told CTV’s Your Morning on Monday. “Once they win their trust, they psychologically manipulate them to deposit larger and larger amounts of their life savings into fake brokerages and websites that the scam syndicates have set up.”

Podkul tracked down victims worldwide who had fallen for lies of the “good-natured” people with whom they’d struck up apparently random friendships online.

“It starts with a fake job ad that these human trafficking victims come across promising them a comfortable salary and good working conditions in a place like Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar,” Podkul explained. “Instead, they find themselves sitting in front of a computer, looking at training materials on how to scam people online and contact them and try to get into conversations with them, to weed them out of their life savings.”

The term ‘pig butchering’ evokes the compounds where victims of human trafficking end up and are forced to scam people, Podkul said. Similar to how farmers fatten pigs before slaughter, the scammers try to ‘fatten’ their paycheque by gaining and exploiting their victims’ trust.

Beyond text messages, the scams are also perpetrated on social media and dating platforms. Podkul says if you encounter a “friendly stranger” online, who is regaling you with stories of their profitable life, it could be a red flag.

• Get the CTV News App now for breaking news alerts and all the top stories

The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking website describes the business of human trafficking as a “low risk/high reward activity” because the crime is difficult to track down.

“Human traffickers lure their victims by promising opportunities to make quick money. They often use catchy language in job advertisements,” Aziz Froutan, a spokesperson for the organization told CTVNews.ca. “They are quick to adapt their business model or tactics to suit their needs and increase their profits.”

Unlike the sale of materials like guns or drugs, human beings can be sold multiple times for the financial or material benefit of the traffickers, the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking website explains.

For his piece in ProPublica, Podkul spoke with 30 victims, in Canada and other countries, all of whom who had lost money to such scams.

“The global nature of this is really unprecedented,” he said. “I talked to multiple people in Canada who were scammed as well as the U.S., Singapore, France and other countries. So it's truly a global pandemic of scams.”

“The RCMP is aware of what is being referred to as 'Pig Butchering' scam which functions as a romance scam,” Camille Boily-Lavoie, an RCMP spokesperson told CTVNews.ca. “Like any serious and organized fraud, the RCMP continues to assess reported cases and work with its international and domestic counterparts to combat romance scams.”

The Government of Canada website explains human trafficking does not need to involve a person crossing borders, it can occur within the nation.

“Human trafficking involves recruiting, moving, or holding victims to exploit them for profit, usually for sexual reasons or forced labour,” the website explains.

Statistics Canada describes human trafficking as a “modern form of slavery.” Canadian data showcases the number of police-reported incidents has been increasing since 2009. Despite the secretive and illegal nature of human trafficking, Statistics Canada explains the vast majority (96%) of victims are women and girls and one in four are victims under the age of 18.

Anyone can be a victim of labour trafficking but those at most risk are newcomers to Canada, migrant workers and people with precarious immigration status.

“Industries generally connected with labouring trafficking include, but are not limited to, construction, agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality, food processing and restaurants."