Pig Butchering Romance Scams Surge 40%, Pushing Crypto Fraud To Record $12.4bn High

The figure could rise to an all-time high of $12.4 billion as ongoing analysis uncovers more illicit activity, the report by Chainalysis said.

The report, titled ‘Crypto Crime Report’, identified high-yield investment scams (50 per cent) and pig butchering (33 per cent) to be the two most prevalent fraud and scam types.

Crypto scams surge dramatically

It, however, said despite pulling in half of all scam revenue in 2024, high-yield investment scam inflows declined by 36 per cent, while pig butchering revenue increased by almost 40 per cent last year on an annual basis.

The number of deposits to pig butchering scams grew nearly 210 per cent YoY, potentially indicating an expansion of the victim pool, Chainalysis said.

Jacqueline Burns Koven, Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Chainalysis said the combination of lower payment amounts and increased deposits could indicate a change in strategy for pig butchering scams.

“Scammers could be spending less time priming targets, and therefore, receiving smaller payments, in exchange for targeting more victims,” she said.

The report said the evolution of scammers’ strategies is further evidenced in the growing number of employment or work-from-home scams.

Though employment scam inflows represented less than one per cent of the total on-chain value that scams received last year, thousands of people have unwittingly paid into fake job platforms, it said.

“On the back of landmark initiatives, such as the UAE government’s recent ‘Remote Working in the UAE’ report, the country’s job market can be expected to see a rise in remote and hybrid work opportunities.

“While the majority of these will be legitimate, scammers will no doubt be keen to take advantage. The tools and techniques they have been honing in recent years with romance scams, can be easily adapted to now trick anxious, perhaps vulnerable, job seekers,” Koven said.

Industrialisation fuels fraud growth

Chainalysis said a major contributor to the growth in pig butchering and employment scams is the ongoing ‘industrialisation’ of the fraud ecosystem, epitomised in the staggering $375.9 million in cryptocurrency payments made to scam technology vendors on Huione Guarantee – one of the most prolific marketplaces for illicit tools and services – in 2024 alone.

“When comparing crypto flows from 2021 through 2024 based on a compound annual growth rate, Huione scam infrastructure providers’ revenue has increased exponentially, with AI service vendors’ revenue growing by 1900 per cent, indicating an explosion in the use of AI technology to facilitate scams,” it said.

These AI vendors offer technology that helps scammers impersonate others or generate realistic content that tricks victims, the report said.