Inside the 'crypto con' costing victims billions in losses as scam compounds spread globally: ABC News Investigates

Shai Plonski thought he had found the perfect woman. He said he had been messaging the woman named "Sandy" he met on a Facebook dating site, believing she shared his interest in yoga and poetry and that she lived 30 minutes away from his house in Sebastopol, California.

The two texted and shared photos for weeks until one day Plonski said he shared that his business was struggling after the COVID-19 pandemic. The woman suggested he should try investing into cryptocurrency, something she said she was an expert on, Plonski told ABC News.

"Now open your trading account ... and I will guide you step by step into the right position," Plonski said the woman told him via text.

At first, Plonski said he invested $200. After he was able to successfully withdraw it with a 10 % return, he continued to invest. Soon, he said he invested everything he had -- his entire life savings.

But when Plonski shared the news of his new relationship and of his success in investing with his friends, he didn't get the reaction he was expecting.

Plonski said his friends showed him an article about a scam known as "pig butchering," in which scammers groom their victims for months, according to the FBI, and establish a level of trust before enticing the victim into investing in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme.

"I read the article, and it essentially described what had been going on," Plonski told ABC News' investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky. "And then, you know, my heart just broke."

Plonski attempted to withdraw his life savings but was told he needed to pay a $10,000 deposit by a customer service agent to be able to withdraw his investment. After Sandy said she couldn't help him, Plonski said he reported his loss to the FBI and cut off contact with Sandy.

According to the FBI, crypto investment scam losses rose from $3 billion in 2022 to $4.5 billion in 2023. For the first six months of 2024, the agency received over 18,000 complaints reporting crypto-investment scams, with losses of more than $1.9 billion.

"Pig butchering is one of the world's most dangerous phenomenons that is happening right now," said Erin West, a prosecutor for Santa Clara County, California. "What we're seeing is victims that are coerced into a situation where they end up investing in cryptocurrency and losing all of their money."

West, who said she has been able to recover some victims' money, told ABC News that scammers have "playbooks."

"They know exactly how to talk to a 30-year-old software engineer, or a 50-year-old woman with two teenage boys, or a 70-year-old man who's just lost his wife," West said.

ABC-owned stations found victims nationwide, including in Chicago, where a woman said she nearly lost a million dollars.

"I had nothing left, and I have to sell everything," Erika DeMask told ABC Chicago station WLS.

Officials told ABC News that scammers are in for the "long haul" and will text and sometimes even Facetime you for months or years until the individual has lost everything or realizes the investment is a scam.

"What we see people doing is we see them liquidating their 401Ks," said James Barnacle, a top FBI official. "We see them going to a financial institution and borrowing money."

"This has led to tragic situations here in the United States," Barnacle added. "So not only are they losing everything, they're choosing to end their life as well. It's just a very tragic crime problem."

Officials, including Barnacle, told ABC News the crime doesn't just involve victims in the United States.

Scam compounds

An ABC News investigation found that the people sending the text messages may also be victims themselves. In parts of Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, at least two hundred thousand people are reported to be trafficked and forced to target people like Shai, according to the United Nations.

"What is really unique about this trend is that it's double-edged," said Stephanie Baroud, a criminal intelligence analyst at Interpol. "There's two different sets of victims, those who are trafficked on the one side, and those who are scammed of large sums of money on the other side. And it's true that victims on both ends of this trend have really dealt with a lot of repercussions."

A report by the UN found that "dormitory style bedrooms were constructed in complexes; scammer training manuals were created; enforcers were hired to control trafficking victims; and the mass recruitment of trafficking victims began." The scam compounds are run by organized criminal groups, the UN report said.

ABC News spoke to Sara, a 36-year-old woman who does not want to use her real name. Sara, who lives in South Africa, claims she was trapped in a scam compound in Myanmar for nine months after applying to a customer service job based in Thailand.

Sara said she was interviewed multiple times for the job, and a round-trip plane ticket was even purchased for her to fly to Thailand by what she believed was a legitimate company.

"It seemed legit because every time I called them, they would pick up," Sara said.

But when Sara arrived in Thailand, she said she was driven in a car for hours and then eventually placed in a boat with gunmen.

"It was so scary, because now if this is a job, why do we have gunmen," Sara said.

Sara said she was taken across the border to Myanmar and placed in a scam compound where she was given scripts and several phones to message people like Shai.

"[A] lady told me, like, 'You're gonna be a scammer,'" Sara said. "I'm, like, 'What do you mean a scammer? Because you said I'm gonna do a customer service job, I wanna go home.'"

Sara was able to leave the compound when a fellow victim who had escaped months before helped her pay for her ransom.

Officials told ABC News the criminal groups are becoming more sophisticated and expanding to other parts of the world.

"This trend has really become a global crisis," Baroud said. "And it keeps getting worse."

Officials say awareness is key

As scam compounds grow and scammers use new tools like artificial intelligence to target individuals for money, awareness is key to fighting these schemes, said West, the Santa Clara prosecutor.

"We really need to be wary of anyone who is coming into our life that we did not invite into our life," West said.

"If it's well-crafted, and it reaches you at the opportune time, you might be surprised that you can really fall for the scam," Baroud of Interpol said. "It's important for really any online user to be vigilant, and to really be aware of any ad they are clicking on, any very lucrative opportunity they are seeing online."

For Plonski and Sara, sharing their stories is their way of helping people become aware of the growing scam, they said.

"People are out here trying to connect, and they don't know about it," Plonski said. "So for sure I thought one way I could turn this into something positive is to try to educate and prevent it happening to other people."

-- ABC News' Jason Knowles of WLS, Melanie Woodrow of KGO and Diane Wilson of WTVD contributed to this report.