Tech executive swindled out of $450,000 by a man she met on Hinge in a vicious ‘pig slap’ trick

A tech executive has revealed she has fallen victim to a vicious new “pig slaughter” scam – in which romantic fraudsters lure individual individuals into investing in fake cryptocurrencies.

Shreya Datta, 37, lost $450,000 to a con artist posing as a handsome French wine merchant named ‘Ancel Mali’ after she met him on Hinge and the two began exchanging WhatsApp messages.

The crime is known as ‘pig slaughter’ because the victims are basically ‘fattened’ with a fake romantic relationship before being slaughtered by fraudulent investment advice.

Datta, who describes herself as a “romantic” with bad luck and is recently divorced, told the Philadelphia investigator she was lured in by Ancel’s devotion to her after months of searching dating apps.

Ancel used an image of a German fitness influencer on his profile and talked to Datta for months, eventually convincing her to put money into a fake investment app.

The two never met in person, but they spoke via video chat twice — though Ancel only showed her his dog during the conversation.

Datta – who earns a six-figure salary at a global technology company – told the Questioner she’d felt like she had “a hole in my soul for not having a man in my life” – hence her being made fun of.

“I was in a trance,” she said adding “it’s like my psychology has been hacked.”

Data from the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center (IC3) shows that cryptocurrency scams are the fastest growing form of investment fraud.

Last year, victims reported a loss of $2.57 billion — nearly three times the amount in 2021. And last month, the Justice Department recovered $112 million in virtual currency linked to a pig slaughter scam.

The “pig slaughter” scam is long-winded and sees the scammer enter into a months-long relationship to build trust.

Scammers often let victims easily withdraw money from the investment app at first – but once they invest heavily, they lose this option.

Datta was talking harmlessly on Hinge to Ancel until they moved to WhatsApp where he began discussing his dream of achieving “wealth freedom,” adding that he was interested in cryptocurrencies.

In a post seen by the Questionerhe explained, “So that I don’t have to work all my life, and I have more time to accompany my beloved to travel the world and leave footprints of our love in every corner of the world.”

On his advice, she then downloaded a crypto trading app from a link he sent her and converted $1,000 of her savings into the digital currency through the exchange platform Coinbase.

From there, she sent the money to a trading app and watched it swell to $1,250 – which she was able to withdraw immediately.

Meanwhile, Ancel continued to give excuses as to why they couldn’t meet in person, claiming in January that he had a business trip to San Francisco.

Datta described herself as a “romantic” with bad luck and had recently divorced when she fell for the cruel ruse

Datta met ‘Ancel’ on the dating app Hinge. She told the Philadelphia questioner that she felt like she had a “hole in my soul because I didn’t have a man in my life”

By then, she had invested $6,000, which had grown to $9,000.

He then told her to earn more money she needed to increase her investment and urged her to sell her stock and take out personal loans to do so.

He also loaned her $150.00.

When she struggled to tap into her 401K because it raised questions at work, he snapped, “Can’t you control your own money?”

After successfully liquidating her retirement fund, she had invested $450,000 in the fake app by the end of March. The app claimed that her money had more than doubled.

But when she tried to withdraw it, she got a notice that she had to pay 10 percent income tax.

From there, Datta suspected she had been scammed and called her brother, a lawyer in London, who hired a private investigator and discovered the account was fraudulent.

Although she has filed a report with the FBI, she has not yet received the money back – although her family bailed her out of debt.

Coinbase also froze her account after the scam, writing in an email that she was “concerned” that she had sent money to a “fraudulent investment platform.”

Datta said, “Sometimes I’m like, ‘It’s just money.’ Some days I’m like, “I should just cry.”

Many pig slaughterhouses are reportedly run by criminal syndicates in Cambodia, which employ thousands of people.

A report of vice news and the South China Morning Post found last year that workers are themselves enslaved and mistreated, having been lured there with the promise of legitimate employment.

They are presented with scripts that are tailored to individual victims.