Details of the U.S. Department of Justice’s largest-ever cryptocurrency confiscation have emerged after an indictment was unsealed in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday. You’ve seen the headline, and there’s a lot to take in, but the essence of the indictment is that the alleged scammer, Chen Zhi, is accused of hoarding $15 billion in Bitcoin, raked in from a sophisticated ‘pig butchering’ operation run out of Cambodia. Moreover, Zhi is said to have run much of his lucrative fraud and money laundering business using trafficked forced labor.
‘Pig butchering’ scams are characterized by con artists emotionally manipulating victims into investing in fake schemes. It is a ‘long con,’ as there is a period of building trust and delivering small or false gains before the victims are financially ‘slaughtered.’ At this point, the con artist takes a large payoff – often severely or completely draining their victim’s funds.
