A new form of abuse related to “Pig Butchering” has arisen in which scammers target vulnerable adults by posing as government officials or representatives of financial institutions, gaining their trust, and claiming that the senior citizens’ financial accounts are under attack and need to be converted through bank wire transfers into cryptocurrency as a means of purportedly securing those assets.
Through intricately scripted and fast-moving mechanisms, the scammers dupe the senior citizens into wiring large sums of money from their banking and investment accounts to cryptocurrency exchange accounts and private cryptocurrency wallets managed by the scammers, who then abscond with those funds. The effects of such abuse are oftentimes far-reaching, affecting not only the direct victims of the abuse but also the intended beneficiaries designated in the victim’s estate planning documents like wills and trusts.