A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being deceived, as the FBI says this is part of a worrying increase in cases of "sextortion" in the country. The modern extortion technique is called "Pig Butchering," a type of scam that is increasing worldwide. In the same context, Cezary Podkul, a journalist at ProPublica, told CTV's Your Morning on Monday: "These scammers try to increase their salaries by initiating a conversation with their victims first, and once they gain their trust, they psychologically manipulate them to deposit larger and larger amounts of their life savings into brokerage firms and fake websites created by scam syndicates." Podkul also tracked victims around the world who fell into the trap of lies from "nice" people who apparently made random friendships with them online. Podkul explained that "it starts with a fake job advertisement where human trafficking victims are lured by the promise of a comfortable salary and good working conditions in a place like Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar." "Instead, they find themselves sitting in front of a computer, looking at training materials on how to deceive people online, contact them, and try to engage in conversations to extract them and their life savings." Podkul added that the term "Pig Butchering" evokes the vehicles in which human trafficking victims end up and are forced to scam people, similar to the way farmers fatten pigs before slaughter; scammers try to "fatten" their salaries by gaining and exploiting the trust of their victims. Besides text messages, scams also occur on social media and dating platforms. Podkul says that if you encounter a "friendly stranger" online who delights you with stories of their lucrative life, it could be a red flag.

Similarly, the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking described human trafficking as a "low-risk, high-reward activity" because the crime is difficult to track. "Human traffickers lure their victims by promising opportunities to make money quickly," said Aziz Frutan, the organization's spokesperson, to CTVNews.ca. They often use attractive language in job ads and "are quick to adapt their business model or tactics to meet their needs and increase their profits." Unlike the sale of items like guns or drugs, people can be sold multiple times for the financial or material benefit of traffickers.

Also, for his article in ProPublica, Podkul spoke with 30 victims in Canada and other countries, all of whom lost their money in such scams, saying: "I have talked to several people in Canada who were deceived in addition to the United States, Singapore, France, and other countries. So it really is a global pandemic of scams." Camille Pouilly-Lavoie, spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), told CTVNews.ca: "The RCMP is aware of the so-called 'Pig Butchering' scam, and like any serious and organized scam, the police continue to assess reported cases and work with their international and local counterparts to combat romance scams." The Government of Canada website explained that human trafficking does not require involving a person across borders but can happen within the country and that "human trafficking involves recruiting, transporting, or holding victims for exploitation for profit, usually for sexual purposes or forced labor." Statistics Canada describes human trafficking as "a modern form of slavery," where Canadian data shows police-reported incidents are on the rise since 2009. Despite the secretive and illegal nature of human trafficking, Statistics Canada indicates that the vast majority (96%) of victims are women and girls, and one in four victims under the law are under 18 years old.