Meta purges over 2 million accounts linked to scam centres

NEW DELHI — Meta has purged more than two million accounts linked to scam centres in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Philippines.

The social media giant said they are going after the criminal organisations behind ‘pig butchering’ and other schemes, which target people globally through messaging, dating, social media and crypto and other apps to convince them to ‘invest’ under false pretenses.

“We’ve partnered with law enforcement and our peers in the private sector to share insights and work together to disrupt these malicious scam operations,” said the company.

One of the most egregious and sophisticated fraud scams, ‘pig butchering’ is all about building trusted personal relationships online with someone only to manipulate them to deposit more and more money into an investment scheme, often using cryptocurrency, and ultimately lose that money.

According to Meta, the scale and sophistication of this threat is unprecedented, with the US Institute of Peace estimating that up to 300,000 people are forced into scamming others around the world by these criminal groups, with about $64 billion dollars stolen worldwide annually as of the end of 2023.

The criminal compounds force their workers to engage in a wide range of malicious activity, from cryptocurrency, gambling, loan and investment scams (‘pig butchering’) to government and other impersonation scams.

Across many internet and telecom services, they make up deceptive personas, often masquerading as attractive single people or pretending to represent government agencies or trusted public figures and businesses.

These scams can start on dating apps, text message, email, social media or messaging apps, then ultimately move to scammer-controlled accounts on crypto apps or scam websites masquerading as investment platforms.

“The Royal Thai Police has been working with Meta on disrupting criminal scam centres for over two years. We’ve been able to share information so they can investigate and take action against the bad guys and help us hold the criminal syndicates behind these scam centres accountable,” said Police Major General Teeradej Thumsutee, Commander of the Investigation Division of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, Royal Thai Police.