The “Pig Slaughter” scam is a term that became popular last year when millions of accounts used by the syndicate were deleted by Meta and the Thai government cut off electricity to Myanmar, which was the heart of the activity. This week the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they seized $15 billion (~RM 63 billion) worth of Bitcoin from a crypto wallet used by a syndicate operating in Cambodia.
The Bitcoin is owned by, Chen Zhi who heads the Prince Group. On the outside, Prince Group, which was founded in 2015, operates as a real estate and finance company but it is all just a ruse to cover up the real operation of committing online fraud.
In addition to defrauding victims using the “pig slaughter” technique, Prince Group is also involved in human trafficking crimes with individuals who are deceived into luxury jobs being held as slaves to carry out the operation.
The pig slaughter scam gets its name because the victim will be protected by criminals in the initial stages before being tricked into handing over large sums of money, similar to how farmers protect pigs that are then slaughtered.