Interpol, a sprawling international bureaucracy where 196 countries pool their resources to issue strongly worded notices and organize conferences in scenic locations, recently expanded its role to become a schoolmarmish Internet scold.
"INTERPOL is calling for a shift in language to combat online relationship and investment frauds," it announced in a press release, "advocating for the term 'romance baiting' to replace the widely used but stigmatizing 'pig butchering.'"
In other words, what's really stopping people from admitting they've been fleeced isn't shame or embarrassment, but vocabulary.
"Once victims invest significant sums of money, they are manipulated further or abruptly cut off, often leaving them with devastating financial losses as well as psychological harm," Interpol explains, seemingly more concerned with the trauma of the term than the trauma of the crime itself. Their solution? Replace one metaphor about slaughtering animals with another about tricking lovesick suckers with bait.
As reported in The Register, Interpol is so committed to this rebranding exercise that they've gone back through their archives, scrubbing the offending phrase from press releases faster than scammers can empty their victims' crypto wallets.
The linguistic purging hasn't been perfect, though. Traces of "pig butchering" remain scattered throughout Interpol's PDF archives and can still be found via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Meanwhile, major U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, continue using the term, with the FBI noting that "pig butchering is one of the most prevalent and damaging fraud schemes today."
A companion video released by Interpol shows a severely depressed journalist furrowing her brow while typing "Pig Butchering Scam Targets Victims Worldwide." Accompanied by ominous music, she suddenly has an epiphany and changes the headline to "Romance Baiting." The video concludes with the message "Words matter. Let's change the narrative. Think Twice" — followed, without apparent irony, by Interpol's logo of a giant sword impaling planet Earth.
Previously:
• Undercover video exposes massive 'Pig Butchering' romance scam center in Dubai
• Ecstatic self-butchering pig
