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June 4, 2025 44 mins

“Imagine a campus with 35 buildings, but they are all for the purpose of scamming. It was a walled in, locked down facility where hundreds, thousands of people were in the business of scamming people all over the world.”


Pig Butchering scams have become some of the most lucrative online frauds around. These are highly organized, emotionally manipulative schemes where victims are tricked into handing over life savings, often after forming fake romantic relationships with their scammers. Since 2020, more than 75 billion dollars could have been stolen from victims worldwide.


On this week’s episode we hear from someone on the frontline investigating and shutting down these pig butchering scams. She’s seen the inside of scam factories to show us exactly how they carry out their lucrative crimes. 


Our guest, Erin West spent 26 years as a Deputy District Attorney and carried investigations into cryptocurrency-enabled crimes, SIM-swapping, and digital financial fraud. 


Now, as the President of the anti-fraud initiative Operation Shamrock, Erin is on a mission to unite the global community—law enforcement, crypto platforms, NGOs—to expose, disrupt, and shut down these fraud networks for good.

 

Sumsub's website: sumsub.com  

Sumsub’s What The Fraud Summit: https://sumsub.com/wtf-summit/

Sumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsub 

Sumsub's Facebook: facebook.com/sumsub 

Sumsub's Instagram: facebook.com/sumsubcom 

Sumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcom  

Thomas Taraniuk on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tomtaraniuk  

Erin West on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinnordbywest




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