{"id":52213,"date":"2023-01-29T16:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T07:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/jan\/29\/everything-is-fake-how-global-gangs-are-using-uk-shell-companies-in-multi-million-pound-crypto-scams"},"modified":"2023-01-29T16:00:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T07:00:42","slug":"everything-is-fake-how-global-crime-gangs-are-using-uk-shell-companies-in-multi-million-pound-crypto-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=52213","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everything is fake\u2019: how global crime gangs are using UK shell companies in multi-million pound crypto scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Investigation reveals more than 150 fake firms, many with ties to China, are targeting people online, breaking their hearts \u2013 and emptying their bank accounts.<\/p>\n<p>A woman meets a man online. They flirt. Then, after a few weeks, they begin imagining a future together. Fast forward a few months and one of them has had their heart broken and been defrauded of their life savings.<\/p>\n<p>It sounds like a classic romance scam, but it isn\u2019t. This is \u201cpig butchering\u201d: a brutal, elaborate and rapidly expanding form of organised crime, often involving criminal syndicates, modern-day slaves and victims around the world.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/jan\/29\/everything-is-fake-how-global-gangs-are-using-uk-shell-companies-in-multi-million-pound-crypto-scams\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investigation reveals more than 150 fake firms, many with ties to China, are targeting people online, breaking their hearts \u2013 and emptying their bank accounts.A woman meets a man online. They flirt. Then, after a few weeks, they begin imagining a futur&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3541,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,1133,983,310,1026,351,233,1668,58,52,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-consumer-affairs","category-crime","category-cryptocurrencies","category-e-commerce","category-internet","category-money","category-organised-crime","category-technology","category-uk-news","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52230,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52213\/revisions\/52230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}