the link between modern slavery, torture and online crime

Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler tells the story of a fraudster who convinces women he meets on a dating app to “lend” him large sums of money. It exposes the devastating financial damage and psychological trauma that online romance fraud can cause for victims. But it’s not just carried out by individuals – sometimes it’s orchestrated by organised crime groups operating on an industrial scale.

A newer type of such fraud is often called “pig slaughter.” The term is said to reflect how victims are fattened up for slaughter like pigs. As we argued in our recent article, this term dehumanizes victims and reveals something of the psychology of the fraudsters themselves, reflecting how they see themselves as “hunters,” which helps them justify their actions.

This type of fraud is attributed to Chinese organized crime groups known as triads. Victims are typically approached via messaging apps and dating sites, where fraudsters attempt to gain a potential victim’s trust by manipulating them, often over several months. They then introduce the idea that their relative has a financial background, before convincing the victim to invest money in cryptocurrency trading websites.

These websites are also run by fraudsters, who edit them to show small initial profits, allowing victims to withdraw these profits to convince them of the legitimacy of the scheme. Victims are then advised to invest larger amounts. When the perpetrator sees that the victim has invested a significant amount, they “withdraw” by showing huge losses, giving them cover to steal their victim’s money.

What makes this type of fraud different is that the perpetrators are often victims of recruitment fraud themselves. Financially vulnerable people are promised work in casinos and sent from all over the world to Southeast Asia, most often Cambodia and Myanmar. They are then locked up in large complexes and can be forced to defraud people 17 hours a day.

A 2023 report by Humanity Research Consultancy, a social enterprise that conducts research into modern slavery, provided a glimpse into the conditions in these places. To ensure compliance, traffickers routinely torture their victims, using methods such as electrocution, burying captives alive, or crushing their fingers with hammers. Women are often forced into sex work in the compound’s brothels and to act as models during video chats with potential victims.

There is emerging evidence to suggest these compounds are also operating further afield. A BBC investigation in August 2024 found a pig slaughterhouse in Douglas, Isle of Man, where a hotel and former bank offices were being used as premises by almost 100 Chinese nationals to extort more than £4 million from victims in China.

The use of the term “pig slaughter” in this context sheds light on a broader process of dehumanization. By considering themselves intellectually superior, fraudsters, in their self-appointed role as hunters, can alleviate their guilt while harming those they consider inferior.

A 2018 UK study and a 2023 joint Nigeria-UK study found that some Nigerian songs similarly blame and dehumanise victims of online fraud. For example, the 2023 song Dejavu has the lyric “addicted to my lappy o I still dey bomb maye eh”, meaning “addicted to my laptop I’m still bombing (hunting) for senseless clients (victims)”.

Psychological research on dehumanization shows that it is easier to harm people who are perceived as inferior when you see yourself as superior. This includes violent acts, discrimination, and exploitation in contexts such as genocide, incel ideology, and prejudice against racial minorities, drug users, and victims of bullying. In the context of online fraud, dehumanization reduces empathy and serves as a shield that allows perpetrators to condemn themselves.

In the same way, hunting and killing a “pig” can be likened to a recreational activity, with the pig symbolizing something less than human. According to the work of the late Canadian-American psychologist Albert Bandura on dehumanization, abusing a person who has not been dehumanized can be more painful for the perpetrator, and often results in misery and self-condemnation.

Passive and active dehumanization differ in expression. Active dehumanization involves explicitly harmful actions, such as reducing the humanity and intellectual capacity of victims by comparing them to animals such as pigs or impalas (a type of antelope). Passive dehumanization, on the other hand, arises from apathy or neglect.

In online fraud, criminals actively dehumanize victims, while broader discussions of “pig slaughter,” such as in academia and news reports, often perpetuate passive dehumanization. Both forms, whether intentional or unintentional, are the result of conscious disregard or a failure to recognize the humanity of others.

Researchers and journalists can help rehumanize victims of online fraud. In this context, rehumanization means attributing the individuality inherent in being human. An example of this is how the term “child pornography” has been reframed as “child sexual abuse material” (CSAM), a term that rehumanizes victims by not trivializing the crime.

The question is, what should we call “pig slaughter”? Criminologist Cassandra Cross suggests the term “cryptorom,” while another, simpler term that could describe the offense is “financial grooming.”

We need a more empathetic and accurate representation of the people who have been victims of online fraud, taking into account the social, cultural and political context in which the victims find themselves.