Pig Butchering Scams Target Chinese Immigrants in the US

A woman in her 50s who moved from China to the US in 2016 lost $130,000 — most of it from selling her Flushing apartment — to a cryptocurrency scam run by a man she knew only as "Mike." She never met him in person. But she handed bags of cash to strangers he sent to her door, in New York and Florida, after eight months of daily messages that felt like friendship.

How the Scam Works

"Pig butchering" is the name for this type of fraud. Scammers build a relationship over weeks or months — often pretending to be someone the victim already knows — then introduce a cryptocurrency investment that appears to pay off. The victim is "fattened" with small, convincing returns before the scammer disappears with everything. H.L., who asked to be identified only by her initials, said Mike even deposited $10,000 into a crypto wallet to show her a 2% gain. When she struggled with the technical steps, he offered a workaround: hand cash to an "acceptor" he would send to her. She did — three times. The last time, she stood outside a Queens supermarket holding a white plastic bag with $100,000 inside. A stranger approached, showed her a one-dollar bill with a matching serial number code, and took the bag.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded more than $7.2 billion in losses from cryptocurrency investment scams — mostly pig butchering — in 2025, with over 61,000 complaints filed. That was a 50% jump in complaints from 2024. In New York alone, 3,289 victims reported losing a combined $747.1 million to investment scams. The New York Attorney General's Office says crypto scam complaints rose more than tenfold between 2020 and 2025, from 29 to 422. Experts and the FBI both say the real numbers are almost certainly higher, because many victims never report — out of shame or because they don't realize they were scammed.

Erin West, founder of Operation Shamrock, a nonprofit that tracks scam networks, told Documented that early pig butchering victims were almost all Chinese Americans, contacted in their home language. She says couriers — often Chinese nationals connected to money laundering operations — are now dispatched from hubs in Flushing, Queens, and Monterey Park, Los Angeles, to collect cash in person across the country. In January 2026, Chen Zhi, a Chinese-Cambodian businessman linked to one of Asia's largest transnational criminal organizations, was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China after US authorities seized $15 billion in cryptocurrency tied to his network. The DOJ says his operation used trafficked workers in Cambodian compounds and local laundering networks, including one in Brooklyn that processed funds from more than 250 victims.

What to Do

• If a stranger contacts you claiming to be someone you know, call or video-chat that person directly using a number you already have — do not use any contact information the new message provides.
• Never hand cash to someone you met through a messaging app, no matter how long you have been talking. Legitimate investments do not work this way.
• If you have already sent money, report it immediately to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov and to the New York Attorney General's Office. Speed matters — some frozen funds have been recovered.
• If you are an immigrant and fear that reporting will affect your immigration status, contact a nonprofit immigration legal organization before filing a police report. Victims of certain crimes may qualify for a U visa (a visa for crime victims who cooperate with law enforcement).