By Adedapo Adesanya
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has taken significant action against online scammers in Nigeria, removing 63,000 Instagram accounts and 7,200 Facebook accounts linked to individuals using the social media services to blackmail targets after soliciting intimate photos.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Meta disclosed that the Facebook accounts comprising individual accounts, pages, and groups, were distributing scripts on how to blackmail and sexually extort users.
“The Facebook accounts were involved in financial and sexual extortion scams, primarily targeting adult men in the United States,” Meta said.
Popularly tagged as Yahoo boys, these online fraudsters use Facebook for various scams, including posing as individuals in financial distress or as Nigerian princes offering lucrative investment returns. The spate of these scams has increased post-COVID-19 with the rise in digital interactions and a worsening economy.
In this instance, the scammers used fake accounts to mask their identities and engage in “sextortion,” which involves threatening victims with the release of compromising photos unless they paid to prevent it.
Meta revealed that the removed accounts included a smaller, coordinated network of about 2,500 accounts linked to a group of roughly 20 individuals. These scammers mainly targeted adult men in the US, but there were also attempts against minors, which Meta reported to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
The investigation showed that most of the scammers’ attempts were unsuccessful and in response, Meta utilised new technical signals to identify and combat sextortion activities.
Additionally, some accounts were found to be providing tips and guides on conducting scams, as well as links to collections of photos for creating fake accounts.
Meta said its crackdown aims to protect users and maintain the integrity of its platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, from fraudulent activities and exploitation.
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