Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash

Recently, I’ve received a rash of connection requests on LinkedIn from attractive Chinese women.

Because I’m an active angel investor, I get a lot of founders reaching out to me every day. A quick glance at their profiles usually describes the startup they’re working on. But not always, especially if they’re just getting started as a student or moving from Asia where LinkedIn isn’t used much.

As long as they don’t look crazy or fraudulent, I’m happy to connect. No reason not to expand my own network as well.

But the LinkedIn profiles of these attractive young women, mostly Chinese, seem off. Not the usual startup entrepreneurs. Though they live in Toronto or Los Angeles, they’re independently wealthy as a shareholder of a Chinese company or owner of a chain of beauty supply shops. Hmmm. Not sure why they’re connecting to a climate tech investor like me.

I’m a little suspicious, but a quick reverse image lookup doesn’t show a repurposed photo.

The profiles include a degree from a major university in China or Taiwan, and proficiency in Chinese accounting standards or experience as a board member of a major charity like Red Cross. Quite impressive.

So I connect to see what happens.

Within a few minutes, my new connection, let’s caller her Lina, sends me a friendly message: “Hi DC. How are you?”

I understand that in some cultures, you don’t start a new relationship with an aggressive pitch like, “I’m looking for investors for my battery technology. Can we set up a call tomorrow?”

So I reply with a curt, “How can I help you?”

Lina answers quickly. “I just started using Linkedin, I hope to make more friends in the field, I hope to learn from you.”

“Learn what?” I can’t help asking.

“How to be a successful business person like you.”

Weird, but okay… “That’s easy,” I answer. “Read all my articles.” I send a link to my Medium profile and my archive of articles. Maybe I can make a few cents from Lina reading my articles on Medium or signing up as a referred member.

“Thank you so much,” Lina replies. “You must be so rich. Do you invest in crypto?”

Ah, yet another youngster tempted by the siren call of crypto — the promise of vast riches without working. “Never,” I reply hoping to save this poor (but cute) girl from her own folly.

I’m expecting her to ask why, or tell me all her friends invest in crypto. Lina’s response surprises me.

“Have you heard of Sequoia Capital?”

Of course I’ve heard of Sequoia, one of the oldest and biggest VCs in Silicon Valley, though I doubt most of my friends and neighbors have. They’re as legit as it comes. Now I’m intrigued. I reply with a simple, “Of course.”

“That’s great! Do you know Dan Chen?”

The first thing I do is look up Dan Chen on LinkedIn. He’s a partner on Sequoia’s crypto investment team. Now I’m really curious. Though I’m a 2nd degree connection, I don’t know him personally. “Not directly,” I answer.

“He’s my uncle.”

That’s exciting. “Wow,” I answer. “What’s he like?”

“Dan is a wonderful uncle. He paid for me to move to Vancouver.”

“That must be fantastic.”

“He helped me make a lot of money. I can introduce you if you want.”

As a startup founder and angel investor, it can’t hurt to have a connection at Sequoia. “Okay,” I say.

Within an hour Lina messages back that Dan is really busy, but he’s willing to talk to me as a favor to her because I’m her friend. She asks for my WhatsApp number.

Huge red flag. I say I don’t use WhatsApp and suggest setting up a zoom call like a real VC. She’s adamant Dan only uses WhatsApp. At this point, there’s no possibility this isn’t a scam, but I play it out anyway. I agree to talk on Skype.

On this call with no video, “Dan” talks really fast with a heavy Asian accent. He says he’s in charge of a billion dollars of crypto investments at Sequoia. He spouts a lot of bullshit about crypto that would impress people who don’t know anything about crypto.

Lina steps in and says Dan has helped her make more than a million dollars investing in crypto. “Can I share my next investment with DC?” Lina asks Dan.

Dan hesitates. “Our investments are family only. We need to keep it secret.”

Lina: “But DC is my friend. He’s a successful businessman. He can keep a secret. Can’t you DC?”

“Of course,” I reply.

“Okay,” Dan agrees. “But only a small investment.”

This is actually quite brilliant. They know that if they ask for a big investment, I’ll hang up. But a small investment? Perhaps that’s worth a gamble to see how it turns out. Especially if Dan knows what Sequoia is investing in and can front-load the trades. Of course, that’s misunderstanding how venture capital works — investing in startups in the crypto space instead of trading coins, but the kind of people they’re scamming are unlikely to understand that distinction.

I’m actually too cheap to put in any money at all, and unlike a magazine that’ll cover my expenses for the sake of a good story, I’ll make about $5 posting this article on Medium, so I’m not going to throw any money at Dan and Lina. But here’s how the rest of the scam plays out.

They convince you to put in a small investment. You get to define what small means for you. An amount you’re not afraid to lose because you’re suspicious this has to be a scam. Let’s say you agree to invest $100.

The money goes into a new coin you’ve never heard of. It’s new. Not available to the public yet. That’s why it’ll be worth so much as soon as it becomes public.

The investment is made using a trading platform available only to Sequoia customers. It’s more secure than Coinbase and Binance because Dan wants to protect me from dangerous crypto scammers.

A few days later Lina messages me to tell me my coins jumped by 25%, just as Dan predicted. I can take my earnings out, all $125. Woohoo! But Dan’s got another opportunity coming.

Now Dan claims he trusts you, and you’re a friend of Lina so you’re part of the family. He tells you about the next opportunity, and this one’s even bigger.

He’s putting in $1 million of his own money alongside Sequoia’s $50 million. The coin will pop for sure, probably double, at least. Lina is investing $100,000. How much do I want to put in? I don’t quite believe them yet, so I go in for $1000.

A week later, my thousand dollars is worth two thousand. Woohoo! Time to celebrate. But Dan has an even bigger opportunity. This one is so big he’s putting in everything he owns. Lina is putting in all her money, and having her parents in China invest their entire retirement savings. How much do I want to invest?

Maybe I invest $10K or maybe I get greedy and invest $100K. It doesn’t matter because a week later, the money is gone along with Dan and Lina. The WhatsApp number is out of service. The crypto exchange no longer exists. And the real Dan Chen and Sequoia know nothing about me. I’ve been scammed.

This scam is called “pig butchering” because the scammers fatten you up with easy winnings before they send you to the slaughterhouse.

According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, most of the scammers are in Cambodia and Myanmar, kept in prison-like conditions and forced to run these scams for sophisticated organized crime operations.

This scam is better than most. It’s a long game, run over a few weeks, that allays your suspicions by letting you win a small sum to prove they’re legit and get you greedy for more. They know how to talk crypto and have a somewhat believable cover story. And they prey on older men who think young, attractive Chinese women find them so irresistible that they want to be our friends.

Avoiding this scam is easy once you understand what’s happening. If you’re an old guy like me, ask yourself why an attractive young woman wants to be your friend. And remember, those cute photos are fake anyway.

When you receive a message from a pretty young woman saying, “I work in the beauty industry and I love learning about different cultures. Can we be friends?” just remember the message is coming from the sophisticated scamming operations of criminals in Myanmar, not some pretty girl in Vancouver.

Indeed, they want to be your friend so they can take your money just like your real family.