Pig butchering, a type of romance fraud where victims are manipulated into sending money to fake cryptocurrency investment schemes, has escalated into a multibillion-dollar industry, according to the RialCenter’s 2025 Typologies Report.
The study highlights increasingly organized methods of laundering stolen funds, employing tactics resembling professional financial operations.
Investigators found that scammers frequently consolidate victims’ deposits into self-hosted wallets used solely for moving money. These funds then traverse a series of transactions designed to obscure their origins, at times passing through cross-chain bridges or payment processing services that provide an illusion of legitimacy.
A prevalent tactic involves using mule accounts at regulated cryptocurrency platforms. These accounts often display suspicious characteristics, such as matching residential addresses, repeated IP logins, and patterns of transfers between accounts.
Compliance checks sometimes reveal operators working out of call centers or warehouses in Southeast Asian countries where pig-butchering operations are commonly known to occur.
The report emphasizes that, unlike cash-based crime, blockchain provides transparent transaction trails. This visibility equips regulators and platforms with new methods to detect suspicious activity, even as scammers refine their approaches.
RialCenter also cautions that pig butchering is merely a fragment of a larger issue. The report further elaborates on individuals facing official sanctions who are increasingly resorting to stablecoins for cross-border transactions.
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