Part 3 of 3 of survey data from 550 victims of relationship-investment frauds (pig butchering scam)
Part 1: Demographics of Victims
Part 2: Motivations and Impacts
Social Media & Dating Apps
Contrast this to these platforms' use for online dating. See more in Dating apps and social media tech: responsible and irresponsible?
Top Hosts of Fraudulent Investment Websites
From WHOIS Lookup of 2,076 scam investment websites. More in https://www.globalantiscam.org/post/where-most-pig-butchering-websites-live. Note that GASO has already collected almost 4,000 scam websites
How Victims sent funds
About 80% of victims used cryptocurrency to send funds to their scam investment platform, mostly starting in October 2020 and increasingly so thereafter. Wire transfer was more common earlier on.
Top Cryptocurrency Exchanges
Most scammed money was lost through Coinbase.
Dollar amount lost
Victims used Binance and Coinbase the most in opening an account to buy cryptocurrency to send to the sham investment platforms.
Number of Victims
7 victims transferred funds from their own crypto wallets such as ImToken, MetaMask, Trust and Ledger Live, to the scammers. The loss reported totals USD$2,585,445.
Compare to the biggest crypto exchanges here:
Top Banks
In late 2020 and early 2021, many victims wired money to Hongkong. HSBC, the biggest bank in Hong Kong, has the most number of scam bank accounts by far.
Interestingly, for American banks, Bank of America has the most number of fraudster accounts and money scammed through, more than JP Morgan Chase, the biggest bank in the US.
Note that Bank of America only has the third-most number of branch locations, while Chase has the most. https://www.usbanklocations.com/bank-rank/number-of-branches.html
Top banks out of 101 banks used by scammers:
By USD amount sent
By number of fraudster accounts
Since most respondents are in the US and Chase is the biggest bank, Chase bank being the top victims' bank in the US is not surprising
Top victims' banks, out of 152 banks total:
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