• [Alice] “Bob, we’re going to butcher a pig and get rich selling the meat!”
• [Bob] “Okay. What do I need to do?”
• [Alice] “give me some money for pig food.”
• [Bob] “fine” [gives Alice five coins]
• [Alice, a month later] “Bob, our pig is eating a lot. We’ll need more money. Could you spare fifteen coins?”
• [Bob] “Fifteen? Fuck.”
• [Alice] “If you don’t give me 15 coins the pig will starve, and we’ll lose the investment. Remember, once we butcher the pig we’re getting rich!”
• [Bob] “Fiiiiine.” [gives Alice fifteen coins.]
• [Bob, a month later] “Hey Alice, how is our pig going?”
• [Bob] “Alice? Where are you?” [radio silence]

And Alice just stole 20 coins from Bob, through a pig butchering scam.

The key elements of the scam:

1. There’s a promise of huge profits near the end. That’s the “bait”.
2. Investment starts small, but it gets larger over time. That exploits the escalation of commitment of the scammed.
3. At a certain point, the scammer flees.