The link between modern slavery, torture and online crime

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The link between modern slavery, ******** and online ******

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Credit: Sora Shimazaki from Pexels

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documentary “

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” tells the story of a fraudster who convinces women he met on a dating app to “loan” him large sums of money. It shows the devastating financial damage and psychological trauma

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can inflict on its victims. But it’s not just carried out by individuals—sometimes it’s orchestrated by organized ****** groups that operate on an industrial scale.

One newer type of such ****** is often called “pig butchering.” The term supposedly represents how victims are fattened up for ********** like pigs. As we

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, this term dehumanizes victims and reveals something of the psychology of the fraudsters themselves, reflecting how they perceive themselves as “hunters,” which helps them justify their actions.

This type of ****** is attributed to ******** organized ****** groups

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. Typically, victims are contacted on messaging apps and dating websites, where fraudsters try to gain a prospective victim’s trust by grooming them, often over several months. They then introduce the notion that their family member has a financial background before convincing the victim to invest money in cryptocurrency trading websites.

These websites are also

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, who edit them to show small initial gains, allowing victims to withdraw these gains to convince them of the scheme’s legitimacy. The victims are then advised to invest larger amounts. When the offender sees that the victim has invested a significant sum, they “rug pull” by showing huge losses, providing them with cover to steal their victim’s funds.

What makes this type of ****** different is that the offenders are often themselves victims of recruitment ******. Financially vulnerable people are promised work in casinos and sent to south-east Asia, typically Cambodia and Myanmar, from all over the world. They are then locked in large compounds and may be forced to defraud people for 17 hours a day.

A

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by the Humanity Research Consultancy, a social enterprise investigating modern slavery, offered a glimpse into the conditions in these places. To ensure compliance, the traffickers regularly

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their victims, with methods like electrocution, burying captives alive or smashing their fingers with hammers. Women are often forced into **** work in the compound’s brothels and to act as models during video chats with prospective victims.

There is emerging evidence suggesting that these compounds are also operating further afield. An August 2024

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found a pig-butchering compound operating in Douglas on the Isle of Man, where a hotel and former bank offices were used as premises by nearly 100 ******** nationals to defraud more than £4 million from victims in China.

The use of the term “pig butchering” in this context shines the spotlight on a

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. Thinking of themselves as intellectually superior enables fraudsters, in the role they give themselves as hunters, to alleviate guilt while harming people they perceive as inferior.

A

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*** study and a

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****** Nigeria and *** study found that some ********* songs blame and dehumanize online ****** victims in a similar way. For example the song Dejavu, released in 2023, has the lyrics “addicted to my lappy o I still dey ***** maye eh,” meaning “

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.”

Psychological research into dehumanization shows that thinking of yourself as superior makes it easier to harm people labeled as inferior. This includes acts of *********, discrimination and exploitation in contexts such as

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,

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, and

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,

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, and

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. In the context of online ******, dehumanization diminishes empathy,

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that enables perpetrators to avoid self-condemnation.

Similarly, hunting and ******** a “pig” might be likened to a recreational activity, with the pig symbolizing something less than human. According to late *********-********* psychologist

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on dehumanization, mistreating a person who has not been dehumanized can be more distressing for the perpetrator, and often results in misery and self-condemnation.

Passive and active dehumanization

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. Active dehumanization involves explicitly harmful actions, such as diminishing victims’ humanity and intellectual capacity, likening them to animals like

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or

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(a type of antelope). Passive dehumanization, on the other hand, stems from apathy or neglect.

In online ******, ********** actively dehumanize victims, while broader discussions of “

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” such as in academia and in news reports, often perpetuate passive dehumanization. Both forms, whether intentional or subconscious, result from either deliberate disregard or a ******** to recognize the humanity of others.

Researchers and journalists can help to rehumanize victims of online ******. In this context, rehumanizing involves attributing the individuality inherent in being human. An example of this is how the term “child ************” has been reframed as “child ******* ****** material” (CSAM), a term which rehumanizes victims by not trivializing the ******.

The question is what should we call “pig butchering”? The criminologist Cassandra Cross proposes the term “

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,” while another simpler term that could describe the offense is “financial grooming.”

We need

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and accurate portrayal of people affected by online ****** that considers the social, cultural and political contexts that surround victims.

Provided by
The Conversation

This article is republished from

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under a Creative Commons license. Read the

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Citation:
‘Pig butchering’ ******: The link between modern slavery, ******** and online ****** (2024, September 23)
retrieved 23 September 2024
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#link #modern #slavery #******** #online #******

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