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Shreya Datta, a software expert from Philadelphia, fell victim to a sophisticated cryptocurrency romance scam, losing $450,000 in savings and retirement funds. The scam, known as “pig butchering,” involves fraudsters using false love and tenderness to lure victims into bogus cryptocurrency investments. Datta’s scammer, posing as a French wine dealer named “Ancel,” manipulated her emotions through charming messages and deepfake videos.

The “wine trader” wooed her online for months with his charming smile and emoji-filled texts. Then he went for the kill, scamming the Philadelphia-based software expert of $450,000 in a cryptocurrency romance scam.

The fraud, which stripped Shreya Datta, 37, of her savings and retirement funds while leaving her in debt, involved the use of digitally altered deepfake films and a script so complex that she felt her “brain was hacked.”

The scam is popularly referred to as “pig butchering,” with victims compared to hogs fattened up by fraudsters with false love and tenderness before being duped into a bogus cryptocurrency investment.

The fast rise of this fraud, which is considered to be controlled by crime syndicates in Southeast Asia, has resulted in billions of dollars in losses in the United States, with victims claiming there is little recourse for recovering the money.

Datta’s story, like that of many victims, began on a dating app — in her case, Hinge, when she met “Ancel,” who introduced himself as a French wine dealer based in Philadelphia.

Datta stated that she was “charisma bombed” when the topic immediately switched to WhatsApp. The gym buff with a beautiful smile erased his Hinge page to offer her “focused attention,” which was a pleasant experience in an age of transient online connections.

They exchanged photographs and seductive emoticons, as well as brief video conversations in which the suave but “shy” man posed with a dog, which were eventually shown to be AI deepfakes.

They corresponded every day, with “Ancel” inquiring about trivial matters such as whether she had eaten, capitalizing on Datta’s yearning for a caring friend following her divorce.

Physical meetings were repeatedly postponed, but Datta was not suspicious right away. Last Valentine’s Day, she received a bouquet from “Ancel” sent from a Philadelphia flower shop, with a letter addressed to her as “Honey Cream.”

When she gave him a selfie with the flowers, he blasted her with red kiss mark emojis, according to WhatsApp exchanges obtained by AFP.

Traumatizing

Between the gooey exchanges, “Ancel” pitched her a dream.

“The dream was, ‘I’m retiring early and well paid. “What are your plans?” Datta, an immigrant from India, told AFP.

“He’s like, ‘I’ve earned so much money investing. “Do you want to work until you are 65?”

He provided her a link to download a cryptocurrency trading program, which had two-factor authentication to appear legitimate, and showed her what he called money-making deals via annotated screenshots obtained by AFP.

Datta moved part of her assets into bitcoin on the US-based exchange Coinbase, and the bogus app originally permitted her to withdraw her early winnings, giving her the confidence to invest more.

“As you make astronomical amounts of money trading, it messes with your normal risk perception,” Datta explained in retrospect.

“You feel like, ‘Wow, I can do even more.'”

“Ancel” encouraged her to invest more savings, take out loans, and, despite her reservations, liquidate her retirement fund.

By March, Datta’s nearly $450,000 investment had more than doubled on paper, but when she attempted to withdraw the funds, the app wanted a personal “tax.”

She resorted to her London-based brother, who conducted a reverse image search on the photos “Ancel” had provided her and discovered they were of a German fitness influencer.

“When I realized it was all a scam and all the money was gone, I had proper PTSD symptoms — I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t function,” said Datta.

“It was very traumatizing.”

Brainwashed

Dating platforms are riddled with misinformation, with Facebook groups like “Tinder swindler dating scams” and “Are we dating the same guy?” popping up, and studies criticizing the increasing usage of AI-generated profile photographs.

However, the use of romance as a hook to commit financial fraud is raising new concerns.

According to the FBI, over 40,000 consumers reported losses of more than $3.5 billion via cryptocurrency fraud, including pig butchering, to the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center last year.

However, this estimate is likely to be low because many victims are ashamed to report the crime.

“What’s horrific about this crime is that it is meant to take every last penny from its victim,” Erin West, a California-based prosecutor, told AFP. She added that she is “deluged with victims every day.”

Self-harm among victims is a prevalent problem, according to campaigners, with the majority unable to recover their losses and others falling victim to another type of scammer — phony recovery agents.

Datta, who is in therapy and has downsized to a smaller apartment to help with her debt, said she had little prospect of recovering after reporting the crime to the FBI and Secret Service.

Neither body answered to AFP’s questions about her specific case. Neither did Coinbase, which told Datta via email after she was duped that she “may have sent cryptocurrency to a fraudulent investment platform.”

Datta found it more distressing to face with public criticisms like, “How could you be so stupid?”

“There should be no shame in becoming a victim of this masterful psychological scam,” West went on to say.

“Victims are truly brainwashed.”