Man loses $35K in 'pig butchering' scam

 FLINT, Michigan --  A Genesee County man is out $35,000 after falling victim to what is being called a "pig butchering" scam.

Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson said pig butchering is a "corporate enterprise of scammers" whose goal is the financial destruction of their victims. They do this through sextortion, financial fraud, etc.

Simon, the victim who shared his story, is a life coach. He received a text message in March from someone claiming to be interested in his life coaching services.

After a few conversations about the coaching, the conversation turned to investment questions, Simon said, adding he has a background in cryptocurrency.

"From there, they took me to what I now know is a fake website. It looked professional as all get out," Simon said.

The scammers walked him through how their website, which was modeled after a real trading website, worked. Simon first invested $10,000 on the website and made what he believed was a profit. The scammers allowed him to pull out $5,000 to show him how it worked, he said. Simon then invested another $25,000.

Once his online portfolio showed $125,000, Simon said he wanted to withdraw more money from his portfolio.

"When I told them that, then things started to turn south," he said.

That is when Simon realized he had been scammed for $35,000. He contacted Swanson to share his story to try to prevent others from falling victim to the same scam.

"I think what is so admirable is you know you can't get the money back, but you want people to know 'don't do what I did,'" Swanson said.

Swanson said these scammers don't just commit financial crimes. They also use sextortion like a recent case involving a teenager in Marquette.