Pig Butchering Scams as Cyber-Enabled Financial Crime: A Scoping Review of Dimensions, Modus Operandi, and Victim-Offender Dynamics
Gujarathi, Palak; Verma, Shankey; Nair, Vipin Vijay (2026) — Deviant Behavior
Type: Journal Article
Country: Global
Tags: pig butchering, Sha Zhu Pan, cyber-enabled financial crime, scoping review, victim-offender dynamics, crypto laundering, forensic analysis, policy gaps, romance scams, catfishing, crypto fraud, cyber-enabled crime, transnational crime
This piece examines Pig Butchering Scams as Cyber-Enabled Financial Crime: A Scoping Review of Dimensions, Modus Operandi, and Victim-Offender Dynamics within the broader context of online fraud and mediated communicatio...
An Anatomy of ‘Pig Butchering Scams’: Chinese Victims’ and Police Officers’ Perspectives
Han, Bing; Button, Mark (2025) — Deviant Behavior
Type: Journal Article
Country: United Kingdom
This article analyzes the hybrid romance–investment scam known as “pig butchering” (Sha Zhu Pan, 杀猪盘) from the perspectives of Chinese victims and police officers. Unlike traditional romance scams, pig butchering fuse...
Butcher or be butchered: understanding the unwitting recruitment by cybercrime groups in China
Luo, Qiaoyu; Zhao, Yun (2025) — Trends in Organized Crime
Type: Journal Article
Country: China
Tags: cybercrime, recruitment, unwitting involvement, cybercrime industrialisation, China, qualitative research, semi-structured interviews, money mules, AI misuse, risk factors
This piece examines Butcher or be butchered: understanding the unwitting recruitment by cybercrime groups in China within the broader context of online fraud and mediated communication. It outlines common patterns docume...
A new type of victim? Profiling survivors of modern slavery in the online scam industry in Southeast Asia
Franceschini, Ivan; Li, Ling; Hu, Yige; Bo, Mark (2024) — Trends in Organized Crime
Type: Journal Article
This catalog entry examines the emergence within the online scam economy in Southeast Asia of a particular victim group—survivors of modern slavery who become entwined with organized illicit networks. It surveys how thes...
A Sinister Fattening: Dissecting the Tales of Pig Butchering and Other Cryptocurrency Scams
Ordekian, Marilyne; Papasavva, Antonis; Mariconti, Enrico; Vasek, Marie (2024) — 2024 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime)
Type: Proceedings Article
Country: United Kingdom
This catalog entry surveys pig butchering scams within cryptocurrency ecosystems and related fraud schemes as discussed at the 2024 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime). The focus is a broad examination o...
Romance Scam and Legal Interpreting/Translation
Mouri, Masako (2024) — IICAH Official Conference Proceedings
Type: Proceedings Article
Country: Japan
Tags: AI misuse
This catalog entry describes shifts in criminal activity associated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, focusing on how restrictions on the movement of people and goods altered illicit flows. Physical channe...
Victim-offender overlap: the identity transformations experienced by trafficked Chinese workers escaping from pig-butchering scam syndicate
Wang, Fangzhou (2024) — Trends in Organized Crime
Type: Journal Article
Country: United States
Tags: victim experience, offender tactics, platform policy, AI misuse, social engineering, prevention
This study explores the intersection of human trafficking and online romance fraud within the context of the pig-butchering scam (Sha Zhu Pan, 杀猪盘). While the scam is widely recognized for combining romance and invest...
