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The term "pig butchering" has exploded in recent years to describe scams that prey on consumers and devastate their finances. But an international police agency warns the phrase also undermines efforts to combat such crimes.
On Tuesday, Interpol called for the public to stop using the term because it dehumanizes victims, potentially discouraging them from reporting the scams to police.
“It's time to change our language to prioritize respect and empathy for the victims and to hold fraudsters accountable for their crimes,” says Cyril Gout, Interpol's Acting Executive Director of Police Services.
Pig butchering is nothing new since the end goal is the same as all scams: Trick the victim into handing over their funds. Many pig butchering schemes are also just romance scams or investment fraud: The culprit is focused on building a trusted relationship with an unsuspecting internet user, manipulating them into investing their money (usually into a dubious cryptocurrency project), and then absconding with the funds.
The term first gained popularity in China, where scammers referred to their victims as pigs with the goal of fattening them up before the (financial) slaughter, resulting in a large payday after careful, long-term manipulation. Chinese media then ran with the term “sha zhu pan,” or pig butchering, which made its way into Western media and law enforcement lingo.
Since then, the threat of pig butchering scams has increased, causing the term to proliferate even more. On the one hand, doing so has helped raise public awareness. But Interpol says the phrase may be playing into the hands of the scammers by focusing on and shaming the victims, intentionally or not.
“I think we’re giving the gangs too much credit if we use that phrase,” Nick Court, an Interpol assistant director, told Wired. “More importantly, we’re damaging how victims may perceive themselves. I don’t think anyone would want to be called a victim of pig butchering."
Interpol is urging the public to swap pig butchering for "romance baiting," which "places the spotlight squarely where it belongs: on the actions of the perpetrators, rather than those of the victims," the agency says.
Interpol also released a video that shows a journalist swapping the term pig butchering for romance baiting on an article's headline.