ChatGPT Helps Expose Nearly $1 Million Pig-Butchering Crypto Scam Targeting San Jose Widow
San Jose widow Margaret Loke lost nearly $1 million in a pig-butchering crypto scam after a romance that began on Facebook with a man calling himself 'Ed' moved to WhatsApp.
The scammer controlled an online account, showing fabricated cryptocurrency profits to persuade Loke to make further investments. Her transfers escalated from an initial $15,000 to over $490,000 from her IRA, and she also took out a $300,000 second mortgage, totaling close to $1 million.
When the online account froze and scammers demanded an additional $1 million, Loke consulted ChatGPT. The AI flagged the setup as a scam and advised her to contact police.
Investigators traced the stolen funds to a bank in Malaysia, where the scammers withdrew the money.
Pig-butchering is a sophisticated fraud that builds emotional trust over time before steering victims to fake investments. In 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that American seniors lost $9.3 billion to online scams.
Meta disclosed it removed more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts linked to pig-butchering scams in September. Additionally, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned 19 entities across Burma and Cambodia that month for scamming Americans.
Regulators warn that unsolicited cryptocurrency coaching within online relationships is a hallmark of these pig-butchering schemes.
