Romance & Pig-Butchering Scam Lawyer

Key laws & sections

• Information Technology Act, 2000 — Sections 66C, 66D, 67

  Identity theft (66C), cheating by personation using computer resource (66D) — the IT Act backbone of any romance-scam FIR. Section 67 where intimate content is involved.

• Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita — Sections 318, 319, 351

  Cheating, personation and criminal intimidation — the BNS layer on romance-scam complaints, particularly where extortion follows the original deception.

• BNSS, 2023 — Section 91 & I4C / 1930 framework

  Section 91 BNSS for freezing the receiving accounts; I4C / 1930 lien for the inter-bank hold during the golden hour after the transfer.

• Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999

  Where transfers were made overseas under instruction (gift / customs / investment pretexts), FEMA reporting and FATF-typology recovery requests come into play.

• RBI Master Direction on Customer Protection (2017)

  Limits customer liability where the unauthorised debit is reported within 3 working days — relevant where the victim was tricked into authorising debits under deception.

How we run the matter

1. 1
   Discreet intake

   Romance-scam matters often involve facts the client does not want family to know. First sitting is structured for discretion — we take the timeline, screenshots, transaction details and the receiving counterparty UPI / bank / wallet without judgment.

2. 2
   Golden-hour reporting

   Immediate filing on cybercrime.gov.in and 1930 helpline, with email to the bank’s nodal officer requesting I4C lien on the beneficiary account. The first 60 minutes after a transfer decide most recovery outcomes.

3. 3
   Cyber-cell FIR

   Detailed FIR at the appropriate cyber thana with chat logs, payment trail, fake profile screenshots, and where applicable on-chain trace. We avoid the vague half-page FIRs that cyber cells routinely return for resubmission.

4. 4
   Recovery — bank / exchange engagement

   For INR-rail losses, work with bank nodal officers and the IO under I4C. For crypto losses, KYT request to the exchange where funds landed (usually Binance, OKX, Bybit) through Indian LE channels.

5. 5
   Settlement defence (where extortion follows)

   Many romance scams escalate to extortion (“pay or your photos go to your family”). We don’t negotiate with extortionists — we file additional FIRs under Section 351 BNSS and Section 67 IT Act, and route victim-support communication through us.

Why Shield for this

• Discretion built into the workflow. Romance-scam files are stored under restricted access, never circulated in chambers, and partner-attended at every step. Family-facing communication, where needed, is routed through us rather than the client.
• Golden-hour I4C work. Recent matter — a victim transferred ₹6.4 lakh to a Bumble-introduced “trader” who then asked for “tax clearance”; flagged within 90 minutes, I4C lien placed on the beneficiary account, partial recovery secured through coordinated bank action.
• Pig-butchering on-chain trace. For crypto-leg romance scams (pig-butchering through fake trading dashboards), we work with chain-analysis partners to attribute receiving wallets to specific exchange hot wallets and pursue KYT-based freezes.
• Realistic counsel. Recovery rates in these matters are typically 20–60% in the best-case INR-rail scenarios and much lower in offshore / mixer-routed crypto cases. We tell clients the honest probability before any retainer is taken.

Questions clients ask first