On Thursday, the Ministry of Home Affairs released an advisory flagging one of the cyber frauds targeting individuals across the country. The scam goes by the name “pig butchering scam.” The name has been coined by the event where one feeds a pig till it gathers enough fat and then butcher it.
The cyber frauds using the Pig Butcher practice majorly target unemployed youth, homemakers, retired individuals, students, or people who are in need of quick money and can afford to invest some capital in their interest. These individuals are mostly promised extraordinary returns on their investments, and their trust is initially gained by showing some returns too, but once the invested capital becomes sizable, then they are duped of their money.
The scam is believed to have started in 2016 in China and is now a potent threat to Indian citizens, too, as it is growing in scale rapidly. The Ministry of Home Affairs took cognizance and expressed its concern over the threat as it is impacting the lives of common citizens by duping them of sizable money, and in some cases, it is even costing them their entire life savings. Cybercriminals make use of various technologies to reach out to their potential targets, which include WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, etc., along with Google Ads. The ministry also highlighted that the threat is not local but a global phenomenon involving large-scale money laundering. Data from the report shows that 14,746 cybercrime complaints were related to WhatsApp, 7651 against Telegram, 7152 against Instagram, 7051 against Facebook, and 1135 against YouTube till March 2024.
To counter the threat, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination(I4C) has partnered with Google to share any threat intelligence reports for timely action. The report added that big tech also played an essential role in identifying and taking action. The MHA also introduced a Cyber Volunteer Framework, which gathers feedback and cyber reports from individuals to assist law enforcement.
