How ‘pig butchering’ romance scams siphon millions from Californians every year

It took two months of near daily conversations, of first cultivating trust and then love, before he walked into her trap.

Two months of phone calls, text messages and video chats. Two months of sharing their life stories and their dreams about the future before he took the bait — an investment opportunity pitched by this woman he had never met.

“Interesting,” he wrote in a text message. “How much money?”

It started with a small $1,000 cryptocurrency investment, but by the...