Australia’s corporate watchdog has been given the nod to shut down 95 “hydra” companies that it suspects engaged in crypto investment and romance scams, known as “pig butchering.”

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s application to wind up the companies was approved by the Federal Court of Australia on just and equitable grounds after ASIC found that most of the companies had been incorporated with false information.

Many of these companies were set up purporting to provide “genuine services” but were instead believed to be scamming their victims, ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said in an April 8 statement.

“There appears to be a common pattern of scam activity in the nature of ‘pig butchering,’” Justice Angus Stewart said in an April 4 court ruling after looking at 48 “Reviews of Misconduct” from 17 companies accused of facilitating romance scams. The judgment was made on March 21.

Pig butchering scams involve scammers building fake relationships with victims to win their trust before convincing them to invest in a fraudulent crypto or financial scheme.

The securities regulator also suspects that much of the scam activity is coming from Southeast Asia.

Insolvency and restructuring advisers Catherine Conneely and Thomas Birch of Cor Cordis have been appointed as joint liquidators of the 95 companies.

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Nearly 1,500 claims by “investors” had been received by the provisional liquidators, amounting to total claims of over $35.8 million, according to the court order.

The claimants are based in 14 countries, including Australia, the US, Cameroon, Ghana, India, Nepal, the Philippines and France.

The provisional liquidators found that only three of the 95 firms had assets to their name and recommended that the other 92 companies be wound up and immediately deregistered.

ASIC shutting down scam websites

ASIC said it has been removing around 130 scam websites each week of late, bringing its total to over 10,000 sites, which have included over 7,200 fake investment platform scams and 1,564 phishing scams.

“However, these scams are like hydras: you shut down one and two more take its place. That’s why we’re warning consumers that the threat of scams and identity fraud remains high. We remind consumers to be vigilant,” Court said.

Australia’s National Anti-Scam Centre recently reported a 26% fall in scam losses to $2 billion in 2024, while the number of scam reports also fell by 17.8% to 494,732.

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