Andy Greenberg

I was, you know, having a normal Saturday on the roof with my kids.

They were like playing in a kiddie pool.

There had just been like a rainstorm.

There was a rainbow.

It was a very beautiful evening.

And I, you know, in typical terrible 21st century parenting style, was ignoring my kids and looking at my phone and scrolling through messages.

In the middle of mindlessly scrolling between apps... I've got this email.

I found this email from...

Someone with a pseudonym who was messaging me from the encrypted email service ProtonMail.

The email is from an unnamed source who claimed to be a computer engineer in Laos.

A computer engineer trapped in a compound in the region of Laos who wanted to be a source, who wanted to be a whistleblower inside this crypto scam compound.

they shared really detailed documents right off the bat, like an actual written report, a summary of everything they'd experienced and everything about the way that this scam compound worked, including this very, very detailed flow chart that included some elements that I had never heard of before.

The idea of pig butchering is that these are crypto romance investment scams.

A wealthy woman getting in touch usually with a lonely, very often older man and enticing them with some sort of intimate relationship.

The pig butchering part of this is that the pig is fattened up with this emotional connection, like somebody builds a real relationship with the victim until there's a lot of trust and intimacy.

And this wealthy woman says, you know, by the way, like I can help you become wealthy, too.

It seems like you're having some financial problems and I can just refer you to the same crypto trading platform that I use and you can easily double your money.

It's a very safe bet.

I'll walk you through it.

In fact, like I would be kind of disappointed in you if you didn't try it.