The Parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc., Meta Inc, has announced it deleted over 63,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts linked with various cyber and “sextortion” crimes. The company made the announcement in its Q1 2024 Adversarial Threat Report on Wednesday.
Meta said it identified and disabled those accounts through a combination of advanced technical signals and comprehensive investigations, enhancing its automated detection systems.
“Financial sextortion is a borderless crime, fueled in recent years by the increased activity of Yahoo Boys, loosely organized cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria that specialize in different types of scams.
“We have removed around 63,000 accounts in Nigeria attempting to target people with financial sextortion scams, including a coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts.”
“We have also removed a set of Facebook accounts, pages, and groups run by Yahoo Boys—banned under our dangerous organizations and individual policy—that were attempting to organize, recruit, and train new scammers,” the company said.
Further, the parent company of Facebook said it removed around 7,200 assets in Nigeria, including 1,300 Facebook accounts, 200 pages, and 5,700 groups that were providing scam-related resources.
The company said it found that most scammers’ attempts were unsuccessful, though some had targeted minors, noting that those cases were reported to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
The social media giant stated that its efforts extended beyond account removal.
“We also fund and support NCMEC and the International Justice Mission to run Project Boost, a program that trains law enforcement agencies around the world in processing and acting on NCMEC reports.
“We’ve conducted several training sessions so far, including in Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire, with our most recent session taking place just last month,” the firm revealed.
