A retired man in Florence, Alabama thought he had found love online. By the time he realized what was happening, his life savings were gone. More than $222,000 in cryptocurrency, sent step by step at the instruction of a woman he knew only as "Bella."
The federal government recently seized that money. Whether the victim ever sees any of it back is a separate question entirely.
What Is Pig Butchering?
The scam is called pig butchering, a term derived from the Chinese phrase sha zhu pan, which describes how fraudsters fatten the pig before slaughter. The process is methodical. The scammer spends weeks or months building trust with a target, often through a romantic connection, before steering the conversation toward investment.
The victim is never pushed hard. The whole point is that they feel in control, that they are choosing to invest, that the person guiding them genuinely cares about their financial future. By the time the money is gone, the victim often still does not understand what happened.
How Bella Did It
According to a civil forfeiture complaint filed in federal court, a scammer contacted the Florence man using the alias Bella, presenting herself as a 23-year-old woman with cryptocurrency investing knowledge. Conversations moved to Telegram, and they became romantic.
Bella then guided the victim through a series of transfers. Money moved from his Alabama bank account to a Coinbase account. From there, it went into cryptocurrency wallets controlled by the scammers. The funds were in USDT, the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Tether, and they passed through multiple wallets and exchanges before federal agents tracked them down.
The amount seized: more than $222,000.
Where the Money Goes From Here
Federal prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint asking a judge to formally declare the recovered USDT as proceeds of wire fraud. If the judge agrees, the government keeps the money.
That is the standard legal move when suspects are likely overseas and beyond the reach of US law enforcement. No suspects have been publicly identified in the Florence case. There is no indication the victim will receive any restitution. The money the government seized is the money he sent. Getting it back is not a guaranteed outcome of the forfeiture process.
This Is Not a Rare Case
Pig butchering has become one of the most lucrative and widespread forms of crypto fraud globally. According to blockchain analytics firm Cyvers, crypto investors lost $5.5 billion to pig butchering scams in 2024 alone. Chainalysis found that pig butchering accounted for 33.2% of all crypto scam revenue by category during the same period.
The FBI has been running Operation Level Up, a proactive effort to identify and contact active pig butchering victims before they lose more money. The bureau has so far notified 8,103 victims, 77% of whom had no idea they were being scammed at the time of contact. The FBI estimates those notifications saved potential victims more than $511 million in losses.
The Warning Signs
Pig butchering scams share consistent patterns regardless of the alias used or the platform where contact begins. An unsolicited message from an attractive stranger, often on a messaging app or social media platform. A gradual shift toward financial topics. An offer to guide the victim through crypto investing on a specific platform. Step-by-step instructions to move money from a bank to an exchange. A functioning investment dashboard showing impressive gains that cannot actually be withdrawn.
If someone you met online is offering to teach you how to invest in cryptocurrency, that is not a coincidence. That is the introduction.
The Alabama case is one of thousands. The FBI, Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice are all working these cases, but the fraud operations behind them are largely run from Southeast Asia, often by forced labor. The people executing these scams are frequently trafficking victims themselves, trapped in compounds in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, forced to run scripts against Western targets.
That does not make the victim in Florence any less out $222,000. It does explain why identifying and prosecuting the people at the top of these operations is so difficult.
