Meta announced that it has taken down 2 million accounts across its platforms since the beginning of the year that are linked to pig butchering and other scams.
Most of these accounts originate from Myanmar, Laos, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, and Cambodia, which is known for hosting “scam slave” operations.
“These criminal scam hubs lure often unsuspecting job seekers with too-good-to-be-true job postings on local job boards, forums and recruitment platforms to then force them to work as online scammers, often under the threat of physical abuse,” explains Meta.
The primary type of scam carried out by these accounts is ‘pig butchering,’ a particularly damaging financial investment scam relying on long-term manipulation and advanced deception.
Meta removed these accounts from its ecosystem and partnered with law enforcement agencies in those countries to share intelligence to disrupt the scam operations at their core.
Scams on social media
Meta says ‘gangs in the Asia Pacific primarily conduct pig butchering’ scams but target users worldwide.
The tech giant has been reportedly actively fighting this problem on its platforms for over two years now, seeing an expansion of cybercrime gangs from Cambodia to other places like Laos, Myanmar, and the UAE.
The perpetrators, be they forced or conscious, pose as attractive single people or members of government agencies and large companies.
They send out generic messages to a large number of users (via DM, SMS, or email), hoping that some of them will respond, a tactic known as ‘spray and pray.’
Those who engage with the scammers, enter a spiral of deception that takes them to fraudulent investment platforms that appear legitimate but display falsified returns and do not allow money withdrawals apart, maybe from an early exception during the trust-building phase.
Source: Meta
While it may seem like not many would fall for these scams, the FBI reports that it has become a massive revenue generator for these organized crime groups.
The FBI’s 2023 Internet Crime Report warned [PDF] that investment fraud scams saw a 38% increase from $3.31 billion in 2022 to $4.57 billion in 2023.
What Meta is doing about it
Meta says it employs a range of measures to try to detect and stop these scams on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, before they have the opportunity to bait users and victimize them.
The company lists the following measures in its latest announcement:
- Meta enforces its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) Policy to ban scam groups and disrupt their operations across platforms.
- Behavioral and technical signals are used to identify and block scam-related accounts and infrastructure.
- Meta exchanges insights with global law enforcement to disrupt scams and hold criminal organizations accountable.
- Meta collaborates with tech companies and initiatives like the Tech Against Scams Coalition to improve cross-platform defenses.
- Protective features like warnings in Messenger and Instagram and group chat transparency on WhatsApp help users identify and avoid scams.
Users of Meta’s platforms are advised to enable two-factor authentication on their accounts, consider the ‘selfie verification’ pathway to restore access to stolen accounts, and always treat unsolicited communications with caution.
Steer clear whenever you’re asked for money on social media and communication platforms, whether from people (supposedly) in an emergency or to join in “too good to be true” investment schemes.