Manon, an ambitious young woman, was recently the victim of an online scam, plunging into the disturbing world of pig butchering. She was manipulated by a cyberfraud network that extracted a significant amount of money from her. Her experience illustrates the vulnerability of victims to these sophisticated scams. Today, Manon wants to share her story to raise awareness and warn others about the dangers of fraud in the digital world.
Manon has fallen into one of the new scamks: the Pig Butchering. We interviewed her and she told us her story.
It all starts with a Part-time job ad seen on Facebook.
The offer promises Manon a source of additional income, perfect for making ends meet. Curious, she follows the link, which redirects her to a site imitating the famous clothing platform Shein. This site, well designed, displayed Women's testimonies claiming to have made money easily by placing orders online.
“I thought it could be a good income supplement to make ends meet,” she remembers. “Besides, the opinions of these women on the site seemed so real.”
Manon then contacts a woman presenting herself under the name of Briana, who explains that she is a single mother and that this”work“allows him to provide for his daughter. Comforted by this apparent proximity, Manon starts to place orders, hoping to get commissions in return.
For each order placed, Manon receives commission promises, but she has to pay a fee first.
Confident in the process, she follows Briana's instructions and makes ten orders through Briana's account. At the beginning, these purchases allowed him, not only to generate commissions, but also help him recoup your initial investment.
“Briana kept telling me that I was on the right track, that with a few more orders, I could get all the money back, plus the commissions.”
Once the ten orders are placed, Briana suggests that she open an account so that she can fulfill the orders herself and no longer through him. Manon could thus be in autumn in the orders to be made and become a True self-entrepreneur.
“She told me it would be the start of my own business,” Tell Manon. “I felt like I was gaining independence.”
Manon opens her account and starts placing orders. The result is successful: her orders are reimbursed and she even gets a return on investment.
However, as transactions go on, the amounts requested increase. Manon then finds herself involved in a Financial gear, constantly in front invest more to “finalize” the process and release the money promised.
After several days, the The total of his deposits finally reached 50,000 euros. Despite her growing doubts, she sticks on, convinced that she will be able to recover everything by finalizing a few more orders.
“I had already invested so much money... I was telling myself that after all that, I couldn't give up now,” explains Manon. “I really believed that everything would be refunded if I placed a few more orders.”
Manon starts to have doubts when after several exchanges on Telegram, his correspondents are asking him for ever larger amounts.
She confides in a developer friend, who studies the site and notices anomalies. Faced with new payment requirements on Telegram, Manon asks for additional proof of the legitimacy of the operation. That's when she realized that the promise of a refund at the end of the process was just an illusion.
Even worse, further research shows that operations are taking place from a computer located in Burma and use a Computer language in Chinese. Manon then realizes the extent of the deception.
Desperate, she File a complaint with the police in Thailand, had his complaint translated into Thai, to no avail. She contacts The French embassy in Thailand, but again, the procedures are not successful.
“I tried everything to get my money back, but there was nothing I could do.”
Her accounts are now blocked, Manon will probably never recover the amounts invested.
Need to know more? Read our article Focus on the various banking players
The Pig Butchering, which could be translated as “pig fattening”, is a new and increasingly sophisticated scam where scammers gain the trust of their victims before their withdrawing large amounts of money.
This type of scam works in several steps. We explain to you.
Fraudsters lure victims with job offers, attractive ads, or promises of high returns, often through cryptocurrency investment platforms or online sales sites.
Once the victim is engaged, the Scammers encourage him to make bigger and bigger deposits, playing on the lure of profit and the fear of losing the money already invested.
Scammers can wait several weeks or even months to establish a relationship of trust with their targets. They “fatten” them little by little to maximize their gains before disappearing. Often, victims have no idea about the deception until it is too late to get their funds back.
Behind this form of scam are hidden cybercrime cartels, often based in a region of Southeast Asia, encompassing the Burma, the laos And the cambodia.
In these areas, partly escaping the control of the authorities, cartels employ thousands of African and Chinese workers, often forced to operate from “cyberfraud cities.”
These sites, well hidden, serve as logistic bases and operational, where little hands are given sophisticated scripts and protocols to target their victims. Operators maintain falsely reassuring dialogues and are preparing fake websites.
In the case of pig butchering, these scams involve a psychological manipulation effort constant. Victims are led to believe that they are investing in, or at least collaborating with, caring people. Unfortunately, the majority of them, like Manon, only discover the deception after leaving considerable amounts of money.
Manon's story reveals the complexity of well-established fraud networks. Victims, often in search of financial stability or additional income, find themselves trapped by unscrupulous manipulators.
To fight against pig butchering, awareness is essential so that everyone can recognize the signs of fraud and avoid being trapped.
At Finovox, we want to fight these massive scams. How? By fighting against online scams And the money laundering, with advanced technology. The main purpose of our solution is to enable Detect warning signals about suspicious transactions.
To find out more about money laundering: Combating money laundering and terrorist financing: towards the adoption of new rules
Thus, our software is based on artificial intelligence algorithms capable of analyzing large volumes of financial data in real time. He iIdentifies atypical behaviors And the attempts to document fraud !
Finovox thus offers financial institutions a monitoring system that alerts businesses to abnormal movements Or fraudulent interactions.
This anti-fraud technology, already adopted by several banks and payment platforms, represents a valuable advance in the protection of users.
The aim of Finovox is not only to secure financial transactions, but also to raise awareness among the general public and economic actors about the dangers of online fraud.
Want to find out more about our solution? Contact our experts who can answer all your questions.
