80-Year-Old Lady Loses RM30,000 Retirement Savings to a Pig-Butchering Scam

An 80-year-old Malaysian woman who suffered a pig-butchering scam gave her retirement savings worth RM30,000 pension to a fraudster who claimed to look like a Chinese actor, Malaysian local media reports.

A few months ago, the victim met a man online. He claimed to be an influencer and livestreamer with more than 300,000 followers who looked like a famous Chinese celebrity and sent photos and videos to prove that.

One day, the “influencer” suddenly said that his RM200 million worth of gold had been stolen, making him so desperate that even wanted to kill himself. The victim therefore decided to help him with her savings.

When the scammer realized that her savings were running out, he even encouraged her to borrow money from her friends and families. The elderly said she was doing that for her friend in an emergency.

The victim's son told reporters in an interview that the family learned about the situation a few months ago after they found the frequency of her mother buying game credits Razer Gold from a convenience store.

Although family and friends kept telling her that it was a scam, the victim was convinced of the scammer's fabricated identity, insisting that he was rich and was only in temporary difficulties.

The elderly even bought game credits worth RM1,000 in one day, which made the staff noticed abnormals and alerted her.

The family had no choice but to secretly delete the scammer's contact without telling the victim. However, the scammer used another account to add his mother soon after that.

The victim's family believed that the real influencer was also a victim whose image was stolen by scammers. It is reported that he has made a clarification, saying that he had his only account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TicTok, and reminded his followers to beware of suspicious messages so as not to be cheated.