Interpol is generally ineffective, and this is exactly the type of work I've noticed that they like to focus on and screw up.

Really? This is your criticism? It doesn't cover the cases where the person isn't trying to extract maximum profit.

But, somehow, in your view, calling a victim a pig is accurate enough for the term to be valid?

"Pig butchering" alludes to the method and callousness of the scammer and has nothing to do with the victim. That would be like criticizing the term "whaling" for comparing targets to whales.

The Wikipedia page is a good read for context. Basically, this type of scam was born in China, during COVID confinement, and was named in similarity to fattening a pig (making them "invest" increasing amounts in worthless ecoins) before slaughtering it.

Romance scam is a completely different thing, but they could happen in parallel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_butchering_scam

Yeah I could easily imagine a crypto-oriented investment con or something like that, which has nothing to do with romance per se.

No need for imagination, this is the number 1 scam right now. They make fake investment sites and apps. They encourage the mark to invest some small, safe amount, and let them profit and even withdraw some of their earnings. Once the mark trusts them, they start investing more and seeing their investment growing in the app, which encourages more investing. But, once they go to withdraw a larger amount, there are suddenly all sorts of hurdles and "fees." In reality, there was never any investment happening.

"You're gonna LOVE my new cryptocurrency, HotBabesInYourAreaCoin!"