Elliptic Report: Industrial-Scale Pig Butchering Crypto Scams Launder Billions via BTC, ETH

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic's 2025 Typologies Report reveals that pig butchering scams, a sophisticated form of romance fraud, have evolved into a multibillion-dollar criminal industry targeting crypto investors. These scams involve grooming victims to send funds to fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms like those using Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). The report highlights highly organized money laundering techniques that mimic professional financial operations to clean the stolen crypto assets. Elliptic's investigation uncovered that scammers consolidate victim deposits into self-hosted wallets before moving funds through complex transaction chains. These chains often utilize cross-chain bridges or payment services to obscure the origin of illicit crypto. A prevalent method involves using money mule accounts on regulated exchanges, which show red flags like shared addresses, repeated IP logins, and patterned transfers. Compliance photos sometimes reveal operators in call centers or warehouses in Southeast Asia, known hubs for these scams. Despite criminals refining their methods, the report emphasizes that blockchain's inherent transparency provides regulators and platforms with powerful tools to track these crypto transactions and identify suspicious activity. Elliptic also notes that pig butchering is part of a larger trend, with sanctioned individuals increasingly using stablecoins for cross-border transactions, underscoring the need for robust crypto compliance and monitoring of assets like BTC and ETH.