A Maryland woman reportedly lost millions of dollars after falling prey to a growing cryptocurrency scheme largely perpetrated by scammers in Southeast Asia.

CBS News reports that the victim was initially contacted by the female scammer through a Korean messaging app.

After spending several weeks gaining trust, the fraudster slowly asked for money, supposedly to invest in crypto for her, and showed an investment portfolio that looked real.

“I put in over $3 million into this, and it showed that I was making almost maybe like 80% profit.

When she got a lot more of my trust, more money would be poured in. Unless you know what you’re doing, you’re not going to be able to tell—especially if you’ve never done crypto before.”

The woman was then swindled in a “pig butchering” crypto scam. Pig butcherers spend time gaining their target victim’s trust before convincing them to give their money to invest in cryptocurrency.

The FBI says the scammers often allow their victims to withdraw a small portion of their money first to build trust. They also coach their victims on what to say in case law enforcement gets involved.

FBI special agent Jeremy Capello says that the targets tend to get victimized again.

“They will have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to this scam, and then they are contacted again by these same scammers pretending to be recovery companies, where they will tell the victim, ‘We can recover your cryptocurrency if you pay us a fee.’”

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