If you’ve heard the term “pig butchering” lately and want to learn how these new super scams impact the payments industry and beyond, then you won’t want to miss this: EverC has partnered with Merchant Risk Council (MRC) for a webinar, “Have You Heard of Pig Butchering? It’s Worse Than You Think,” from 12-1 p.m. ET Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023.
Speakers will include Melissa Sutherland, EverC VP and industry thought leader; Matt Friedman, CEO of the Mekong Club and a modern slavery expert; and Adrien Cheek, Senior Manager of Threat Research at Deloitte and a threat hunting and threat intelligence leader.
“Pig butchering” is a scam technique that occurs when criminals groom their targets to invest in cryptocurrencies or online gambling through sham websites. The criminals then coax their victims to spend increasing amounts of money, before disappearing with all of it. The term “pig butchering” references the fattening of the pig before slaughter.
This scamming strategy has already spread through organized crime networks across the globe, with a concentration in special economic zones (SEZs) across Indochina. But as our webinar title states, it’s even worse than that.
“Pig butchering” has a very dark side with close ties to human slavery, since those perpetrating the crime are often victims themselves. They are lured from regional hotspots like Myanmar and Cambodia by fake job advertisements, then forced to commit large-scale fraud, often by threat of extreme violence.
The good news is that financial institutions facilitating the transfer of digital asset payments and other digital assets can help to mitigate the risk of “pig butchering” by implementing tighter customer verification protocols and continuous monitoring of the threat landscape.
In the MRC webinar, we’ll cover how the “pig butchering” scam works, its global impacts, and the payments industry’s role in spotting and stopping the scam. Register for the webinar today.
Want to read up on this burgeoning threat before you attend?
