On 29 January, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported on “pig-butchering”: a brutal and elaborate form of organised crime, often involving criminal syndicates, modern-day slaves and victims around the world, and involves scammers grooming their targets before stealing huge sums in cryptocurrency. It says that an investigation with The Observer newspaper has found that organised crime groups are using the UK as a virtual base for their operations, exploiting lax regulation to carry out fraud on an industrial scale. Analysis has identified 168 UK companies accused of running fraudulent cryptocurrency or foreign exchange trading schemes, around half of which are likely to be linked to pig-butchering scams. Many of these firms are linked through domain registrations and while the vast majority of company directors are resident in China, details about the real owners are scant due to loopholes in the Companies House registration system.
raytodd.blog 