The Bureau is seeing a sharp rise in a new twist on the pig butchering playbook, the long-running romance and investment fraud that has already drained billions from American wallets. In this version, scammers do not stop at convincing the victim to wire money or buy crypto online. They walk it right to the front door, in cash, often after persuading the victim that their bank account has been compromised and that handing physical currency to a stranger is somehow the safer move. The Bureau says the couriers are showing up with a "password," a "code," or in some cases the serial number from a specific dollar bill, which the victim was instructed to memorize. Once the cash leaves the house, it is gone.

The mechanics are uglier than the usual phishing email. Scammers typically build trust over weeks or months through dating apps, social media, or even a "wrong number" text that turns into a friendship. Eventually the conversation drifts to investing, and a fake crypto platform is introduced. When the victim's bank flags the wire transfers or their broker refuses to liquidate without a phone call, the scammers shift tactics and tell them to withdraw cash directly, sometimes converting to gold or silver bars first. A courier is then dispatched to the address. Some of these handoffs have happened in driveways, others in parking lots, and the result is always the same.

Why this matters for crypto traders, even if you would never fall for it

Most readers of this site are not the target audience. The people in their contact lists, on the other hand, very well might be. The FBI's most recent figures show Americans lost over $11 billion to cryptocurrency scams in 2025, with people aged 60 and over accounting for roughly $4.35 billion of that total. FBI Boston alone tracked 103 courier pickups across New England between 2023 and 2025, with combined losses above $26 million. The Internet Crime Complaint Center logged another $55 million in courier-related losses in just the back half of 2023, according to the IC3 public service announcement that first flagged the trend. Those numbers have only climbed since.

The Operation Level Up angle most people miss

The Bureau is not only warning, it is also fishing victims out of these rings before they get drained any further. Operation Level Up, the FBI's outreach program for pig butchering targets, has notified about 9,000 victims and helped claw back roughly $562 million in losses. Earlier this year, a coordinated international action led to 276 arrests across pig butchering networks operating out of Southeast Asia. The scam centers themselves are often the brutal end of the supply chain, with trafficked workers forced into running the chat operations under threat. That detail rarely makes it into the headlines, but it does explain why these scripts feel so polished and so relentless.

If you're worried someone you know could fall for something like this, here's what to tell them

The smart move this week is a five minute phone call to a parent or grandparent. If they look confused when you describe this, they probably need to hear it again. The scams already know to skip the bank and go straight for the door, so the warning needs to do the same.

Real institutions do not send someone to your house for cash. No legitimate bank or investment platform will ever ask you to liquidate an account and hand the money to a courier carrying a code phrase. If a relative mentions a "flagged" account, a "protective" wallet transfer, or a sudden need to convert savings to precious metals, that is the moment to intervene. The FBI also recommends cutting all contact after any unsolicited wrong-number text, refusing to share home addresses with online contacts, and watching for anyone who escalates affection or urgency too quickly. None of this is technically new advice, but the courier wrinkle is, and it is the part that turns a slow-burn investment scam into something closer to a stickup at the front door.

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Author: Cedric Holloway
New York Newsroom
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