Even now, face to face with his decimated savings, it’s hard to reconcile the five-month relationship he had with a Finnish woman in Florida with the elaborate scam it now clearly was.
It felt different than a typical con – too personal, too involved, too reciprocal.
But really, what’s known as “pig butchering” schemes – where scammers build relationships and trust with victims before tricking them into sham cryptocurrency investments – have become particularly pervasive, with some operations tied to mass scam centers based abroad.
The scheme’s name alludes to a pig being fattened up for slaughter.
For weeks, the victim in this case, a Santa Rosa man in his 70s, and Alexa Achselsson, or so she said, messaged every day after meeting on a niche social media and dating site in April. They talked for hours, sometimes by video chat. At one point she even sent him gifts, an expensive pickleball paddle and clothing. There’d been a planned visit, although it was cancelled last-minute, supposedly because of a family emergency just after she’d arrived at the airport in San Francisco.
“They keep you so engaged everyday I think because they know if they can gain your trust they can get your money,” the man said.
He requested anonymity because he has yet to tell his family what happened and is worried about further exposure of his personal information.
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