Security Intelligence Romance scams: How they work, how they win and what we do about it
Feb 18, 2026
Suja Viswesan, VP of Security Products, explains enterprise risk and mitigation. Dave Bales, incident response practitioner, shares practical, empathetic threat analysis. Claire Nunez, Creative Director at a cyber range, outlines social engineering and training. They unpack wrong-number texts, long-con “pig butchering,” data breaches fueling profiles, AI/deepfakes, organized criminal operations, and how to approach loved ones sensitively.
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CEO Embezzled Millions For A Scam
- The FBI investigated a CEO who embezzled $47.1 million to send to a crypto romance scam and later went to prison.
- That loss shuttered the organization and shows personal scams can destroy businesses.
Data Breaches Fuel Targeting
- Breaches of dating sites and public records feed scammer profiling and make targeting easier.
- Scammers use leaked and public data to tailor approaches that exploit life events like divorce or layoffs.
Scam Operations Use Trafficked Workers
- Victims are often contacted by people forced to work in scam centers, sometimes trapped and trafficked.
- Workers sit for long hours texting targeted numbers to cultivate fraudulent relationships.