'Pig Butchering' and Online Romance Scams: What You Need to Know

*Names have been changed

Stella* tried to swear off dating apps, but found herself back on Tinder after feeling bored one evening. She didn’t think she’d find anyone there as she says she’s been on the platform for months but nothing ever came out of the matches outside of the superficial and all-too-brief hi’s and hellos.

And then she matched with a man named Grigor. Stella didn’t think of it much, until he messaged her a couple of hours later. Grigor was 24 years old and said he is originally from the Donetsk region of Ukraine but is now living in Belgorod in Russia after the invasion in 2022. Stella says she started chatting with Grigor in the app, but that he asked for her email address instead.

“He said he wanted to get to know me more through email,” Stella tells Esquire Philippines. “He said he was planning a trip to the Philippines in the next couple of months and was looking for people to show him around here.”

Stella wasn’t comfortable giving her primary email address, but Grigor was insistent. She finally relented and gave him one of her alternate email addresses on yahoo that she rarely ever used.

Grigor sent her an email the very next day. In it, he introduced himself again and said that he was flying to Manila for vacation in three weeks. He asked her if she would be interested to meet and take him around the city. But before that, he wanted to get to know her via email.

“He also sent me a couple of his photos,” Stella says. “He was cute. A bit too young, but I found him very attractive.”

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Fast romance

Stella found herself replying to Grigor’s message and telling him a few details about herself, including her job and the city where she lived. She also said she would be happy to meet with him and take him around the city.

Thus began the regular correspondence between the two. Stella says Grigor would email her once a day, usually very late at night Manila time. Grigor said he worked as a bricklayer for a construction company, but that he went to school and trained to become a teacher. He said he wanted to go to the Philippines to find out what a tropical country is like.

By the third email, Grigor started calling her “my dear Stella.” He sent her a shirtless photo of himself showing off well-defined pecs and six-pack abs. He also started sharing more intimate details about himself, including his last relationship.

An email from "Grigor" to "Stella"

“I want to find love, this is the most important goal in my life,” Grigor says in his email, which Stella shows to Esquire. “Because being alone is empty and meaningless.

“Can I ask you one thing?” he adds. “What is your idea of an ideal relationship?”

Stella says she was disarmed. She found herself opening up to this complete stranger and sharing her own personal stories. She also began looking forward to Grigor’s emails, constantly refreshing her browser when she didn’t see a new email at around 11 p.m. or midnight.

“We can spend all the nights together, at your place, or at my place,” Grigor says in one of his emails. “I’m a very romantic guy and you won’t get bored with me.” 

He also quoted Dostoevsky: “’I want to talk to at least one person about everything as if I were talking to myself.’” I believe that this person is for me, you,” he said.

“Honestly, it was all a bit too much,” Stella says. “I mean, a guy with abs quoting Dostoevsky and saying all of these sweet things? I almost fell for it. Almost. Because at that point, it felt like it was just too good to be true.”

Alarm bells

Stella admits being caught up in Grigor’s attempts at seduction. In one email, he tells her about his plan once he arrives in Manila. 

“Evening...We have a romantic dinner, after a wonderful walk we look into each other's eyes. The light of the lanterns gave the streets an almost fantastic beauty, we have one wish that this walk last as long as possible...We go into the hotel and start taking a shower together...

“This is where my dream ends,” he adds. “I hope you will continue the story? “

Stella reciprocated with sweet words in her replies. But alarm bells were ringing in her head, softly at first. She just couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was off.

“Finally we exchanged numbers so we could communicate on Whatsapp,” she says. “In one of his last messages, Grigor updated me about his travel plans. He sent me a confirmed ticket with his name saying he’s arriving in Manila on March 5 and leaving on March 19. He also said he already booked a hotel and gave me the name of one in Makati. That really made me feel like, okay, this guy is probably telling the truth. I mean, he just sent me his flight information and hotel reservation. I got so excited.”

Immediately Stella planned her meeting with Grigor: she would go and pick him up from the airport and drive him to the hotel. She would help him get settled in, and then they would go out to dinner. She even told some of her friends about him, and they, too, shared her excitement about meeting a mysterious guy from a faraway land.

Everything unravels

But the fantasy finally unraveled in one of Grigor’s messages on Whatsapp.

“I want to tell you some new about our meeting,” he begins. “A little misfortune showed itself.”

Grigor goes on to say that, during his visit to the visa center, he was asked how much money he was taking with him and was told that he needed to have at least $50 for every day he would stay in the country. That meant he was required to have at least $750 to show in his bank account.

“But I am missing $330, and my salary does not arrive in time (sic),” he says in his Whatsapp message. “I decided to ask for help from those around me: colleagues, friends, and my mother. Everyone refused. I was thinking what to do in this situation because I don’t have time. I now only have 9 days to solve this problem.

“My dear Stella, I thought I could ask you for a little support? Can you send me the missing $330 tomorrow or within the next few days? I will return everything as soon as I make this account statement. I will send this amount back to you at the same hour.”

Grigor's Whatsapp message to Stella 

As soon as she saw those words, Stella knew the jig was up: she was talking to a scammer.

“All along I was waiting for this, and it finally happened,” Stella says. “I knew it just all seemed too perfect: his looks, his words, his plan to come here. At the back of my mind, I knew this all couldn’t be real. And him asking for money was proof of that.”

Stella didn’t need to read the entirety of Grigor’s message. Immediately she started writing a reply.

“I am sorry you are facing this problem, but I think it is inappropriate that you are asking someone you barely know  and have never even met for the money,” Stella wrote. “Besides, I checked and Russians do not need a visa to come here to the Philippines for visits of 30 days or less.”

Stella says she knows she should have been more forceful and angry in the reply message, but she still felt like she needed to be civilized in the way she communicated with Grigor.

“I’m afraid I cannot send cash to a stranger, especially an amount that big,” she continued in her message. “There is no guarantee that I will be able to get that money back. There have been too many instances of online scams, and though I am not saying you are a scammer, I cannot take the risk of sending money to a stranger." 

Almost-victim of a scam

Only a day after Stella sent her last message to Grigor, she was browsing through videos on YouTube when she landed on the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The series often tackles serious socio-political issues from a comedic perspective, and Stella was shocked when she watched the episode, which focused on a trend called pig butchering, which, as it turned out, does not have anything to do with carving up a pig.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver's episode on Pig Butchering scams

“I was mesmerized,” Stella says about watching the show. “Because that’s exactly what happened to me. Also, I suddenly remembered getting similar messages from previous matches on Tinder two or three years ago asking me if I knew anything about cryptocurrencies and if I would be willing to learn about investing in them. Of course they didn’t get anything from me back then, but it all made so much sense.”

In essence, pig butchering is a type of scam where unsavory individuals trick victims into starting a relationship online, only to later persuade them to send money or invest in a bogus platforms, which often involve cryptocurrencies. The trend is so-named because it’s akin to “fattening” up a pig before eventually slaughtering them. 

Pig butchering scams are similar to other types of online scams like romance scams and investment scams, for which the victims aren’t just older men and women—practically anybody, in any age group, can be deceived by these scams. In the U.S., for instance, the Federal Trade Commission says 34 percent of people between the ages of 18 to 59 have lost money to fraud in 2021. And those are just the reported cases.

According to online resources, pig butchering is a relatively recent phenomenon. The American Federal Bureau of Investigation says the earliest reported cases happened in 2019 in China. It since took off, especially during the pandemic of 2020-2021. It also became more organized, with rings employing trafficked humans reported in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and even right here in the Philippines. 

In fact, in April 2023, scam call centers were discovered operating in Manila, according to a news release from Senator Risa Hontiveros.

“Sadly, right under our very noses, the Philippines is hosting its very own scam hubs. Large condominium buildings are being repurposed as living and working facilities for trafficked human beings forced to perform scams on hapless victims," Hontiveros said during a Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality hearing.

During the hearing, an Indonesian national testified how he was trafficked into the country with the promise of working in digital marketing. Later he discovered it was actually to scam fellow Indonesians to invest in crypto platforms.

"We were instructed to steal the identities of other people to scam targets,” the witness said. “Our targets are our fellow Indonesians. We find them on Tinder, Facebook, and Instagram. After our targets fall in love with us, we make them invest in cryptocurrency. When we do not get victims, we will get punished.”

Stella also communicated with someone from years ago that she now knows was likely a pig butchering scam

Signs of pig butchering scams

How exactly can one tell if one is being lured into a pig butchering scam? Here's how it works:

- It usually starts with an “innocent” wrong number message, or through matches on dating apps like Tinder and Bumble.

- The scammer then starts building up a relationship with the victim, often using photos of attractive people to lure them in. The scammer diligently sends charming messages to quickly build a rapport with their intended victim.

- In romance scams, the scammer “love bombs” the intended target until he or she feels comfortable enough with the scammer to give them whatever they want (usually money).

- In the case of pig butchering, the scammer starts talking about crypto investments and how they got rich doing it, and eventually encourages the victim to try it out as well. Soon the scammer will get the victim to download an app and offers to teach them how to trade and invest. But the app is bogus and any money the victim deposits into it he will likely never recover.

- Eventually, after the scammer gets the victim to send money, he breaks off all communication and disappears, never to be heard from again. 

You might think that you’re too smart or clever to ever fall for these types of online scammers, but you should be aware that all types of people can and do get victimized. If you suspect that who you’re talking to online is a scammer, you should break off all contact immediately: unmatch on Tinder, block the number on Whatsapp or any other messaging service, and block or report their profiles on Facebook or other social media. You should also act fast and change your login credentials if you shared any of these with the suspected scammer.

And if someone you met online starts getting a little too close too soon, that’s your first sign that they’re probably a scammer.

“I feel embarrassed and mad, but mostly embarrassed,” Stella says. “I thought I was smart enough to know if I was being scammed. I mean, at least they didn’t get any money from me, but the fact that I let it go on for so long makes me think that maybe I’m not that smart. And if I had been just a little bit reckless and didn’t keep my wits about me, maybe things could’ve ended up differently and I’d be crying right now about losing money and a love life.”