Pig butchering
Pig butchering is a tactic where scammers devote weeks or months to building a close relationship with their victims on social media or messaging apps before encouraging them to invest in the share market, cryptocurrency, or foreign currency exchanges. Inexperienced investors and lonely individuals are often the target of this tactic.
Victims think they are trading on legitimate platforms, but the money is siphoned into an account owned by the scammers, who created fake platforms that look identical to well-known trading and cryptocurrency sites.
Scammers will show fake returns on these platforms to convince victims to invest more money. Once they have extracted as much money as possible, the scammers disappear with all the invested funds.
When the victims realise that they’ve been scammed and stop communicating with the scammers, the scammers will often contact them purporting to be from a cryptocurrency recovery business, claiming they can recover the lost funds for a fee. This is a false claim by the scammers and designed to further scam the victims.
Deepfakes
Deepfakes are lifelike impersonations of real people created by artificial intelligence technologies. Scammers create video ads, images and news articles of celebrities and other trusted public figures to promote fake investment schemes, which can appear on social media feeds or be sent by scammers through messaging apps.
Some signs of a deepfake video include the person speaking with unusual pauses, odd pitches, or different accents, their face and mouth movements may not match their speaking tone, and the video may be in low resolution.
If you are a victim of cybercrime, report it to police using the report button on the Australian Cyber Security Centre website.
Report scams to the National Anti-Scam Centre.
If you were contacted via social media, report it to the social media platform.
If you are concerned that your identity has been compromised, contact the national identity and cyber support service IDCARE.
If there is an immediate threat to life or risk of harm, call 000.
If you, or someone you know needs help, we encourage you to contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636, who provide 24/7 support services.
The JPC3 brings together Australian law enforcement and key industry and international partners to fight cybercrime and prevent harm and financial loss to the Australian community.
The National Anti-Scam Centre is Australia’s anti-scamming nerve centre, where industry and government work together to protect the nation and make it a harder target for scammers.
The JPC3 and NASC are committed to equipping all Australians with the knowledge and resources to protect themselves against cybercrime.
Watch our cybercrime prevention videos and protect yourself and others from being victims of cybercrime.
