US prosecutors have issued a Valentine’s Day warning over a surge in crypto-linked romance scams that blend emotional manipulation with fraudulent investment schemes.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio said scammers frequently move conversations from dating apps to encrypted platforms such as WhatsApp or Telegram before pushing victims toward crypto payments.
“Unlike traditional scams, which execute quickly, these schemes exploit both emotional and financial vulnerabilities,”
Said Balazs Faluvegi, senior analyst at BrokerChooser.
Officials said many cases now intersect with so-called pig-butchering schemes, in which fraudsters build trust over weeks or months before directing victims to fake crypto platforms that display inflated returns and block withdrawals.
“A common tactic is to let you withdraw small initial ‘profits’ to encourage you to invest larger sums,”
Faluvegi warned.
The Justice Department last year sought to seize $225 million in USDT stablecoin tied to pig-butchering operations, marking the largest crypto forfeiture linked to such fraud.
Authorities have connected many of the schemes to organised crime networks operating scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia, where stolen crypto is rapidly laundered through exchanges and shell accounts before disappearing across Southeast Asian financial hubs.