- Podcast
- Season 3
- Jun 02, 2025
Pig Butchering: Inside the Billion-Dollar Scam Factories
Pig Butchering scams have become some of the most lucrative online frauds around. These are highly organized, emotionally manipulative schemes where victims are tricked into handing over life savings, often after forming fake romantic relationships with their scammers. Since 2020, more than 75 billion dollars could have been stolen from victims worldwide.
This time, we hear from someone on the frontline investigating and shutting down these pig butchering scams. She’s seen the inside of scam factories to show us exactly how they carry out their lucrative crimes.
Our guest, Erin West, spent 26 years as a Deputy District Attorney and carried investigations into cryptocurrency-enabled crimes, SIM-swapping, and digital financial fraud. Now, Erin is on a mission to unite the global community—law enforcement, crypto platforms, NGOs—to expose, disrupt, and shut down these fraud networks for good.
