Meta Platforms has announced that it has taken down around 63,000 accounts on Instagram and 7,200 accounts, pages, and groups on Facebook, all involved in financial and sexual extortion scams. These scams were mostly aimed at adult men in the United States.
Nigerian Scammers and Their Tactics
The scammers, often referred to as “Yahoo boys,” are notorious in Nigeria for various types of online fraud. These range from pretending to be people in financial distress to posing as Nigerian princes offering investment opportunities. In this case, the removed accounts were primarily involved in “sextortion” scams. In sextortion, individuals are threatened with the release of compromising photos if they do not pay a ransom.
Meta’s investigation revealed that most of these scam attempts were unsuccessful. The scammers targeted mainly adult men in the US, using fake accounts to hide their identities. There were also attempts to target minors, which Meta reported to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US.
Among the removed accounts, Meta identified a smaller, coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts linked to a group of about 20 individuals. These groups shared tips on how to conduct scams, including selling scripts and guides and providing links to collections of photos to use for fake accounts.
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As Nigeria faces economic challenges, online scams have become more common. Those involved operate from various locations, including university dormitories, poor neighborhoods, and wealthy areas.
Meta stated that it used new technical signals to help identify these sextortion attempts. The company emphasized its commitment to removing such harmful accounts and protecting users from scams.
This recent action by Meta highlights the ongoing efforts to combat online fraud and protect users from malicious activities.
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