Comment by jcrawfordor
6 months ago
the term "pig butchering" originates in Chinese (杀猪盘), where this particular style of scam is often targeted at overseas people via WhatsApp. So "pig butchering" refers specifically to these scams run from China (or elsewhere in the region by Chinese operations), and it's what the scammers themselves call it. One of the distinguishing features is that they're often run by fairly large, organized operations with paid, trafficked, or otherwise long-term staff manning the WhatsApp personas. Similar to Indian call center scams.
Much like how "419" or "Nigerian prince" refers to scams coming out of a specific region.
I still don't get it. Is pig butchering a common phrase in Chinese to refer to scams? I believe the phrase, even in its original Chinese language, was only invented recently (Wikipedia says 2016). That doesn't answer the question of why this particular phrase was invented.
The particular reason that this is now associated with a Chinese phrase, and organized Chinese crime in general, is because of the scale involved.
The UN estimates that in Myanmar alone, up to 100,000 people are being trafficked to staff the call centers involved in these schemes. https://www.dw.com/en/how-chinese-mafia-are-running-a-scam-f...
That being said it's not just Chinese people targeting overseas people. Chinese people are also often targets of pig butchering. The problem is so bad that a movie was made about it in China and earned $500M at the box office. Given that China heavily censors its media market, it is no secret who is doing what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Bets
Because, this is how the scammers described themselves, in Mandarin using colorful language.
Mostly degradatory. The scammers think the victims (pigs) are stupid.
> Much like how "419" or "Nigerian prince" refers to scams coming out of a specific region.
419 refers more to a type of scam than a region. In some ways, it's almost synonymous with "online scam" these days.
The name simply originates with Nigeria, and continues to associate with it due to the sheer scale of online scams coming out of the region.
"419" refers to the Nigerian criminal code section which defines the type of scam:
<https://web.archive.org/web/20050308040611/http://www.nigeri...>
Much as with other toponyms, the origins are in fact region-specific, though the term has become more general with time.
The generic term is "advanced-fee scam":
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam>
> the name simply originates with Nigeria
Maybe ingest the entire comment you're replying to first. Especially if you're simply going to agree with me in the very next point:
> though the term has become more general with time
I always thought it was because they are looking for big victims loosing a lot (fattning up the pig and then butchering it) vs scams stealing small amounts from a lot of people.