Facebook parent Meta (META) announced on Wednesday that it had deactivated thousands of Instagram accounts tied to alleged sextortion scams.
In a blog post, the company described how it removed 63,000 accounts, including a network of 2,500 accounts controlled by approximately 20 people, in an attempt to commit financially driven schemes.
According to Meta, the accounts are linked to a loose group of fraudsters known as Yahoo Boys – no affiliation with this website — who primarily operate out of Nigeria and specialize in financial scams.
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These scammers primarily targeted adult men in the United States. However, Meta said that they also attempted to target minors, prompting the company to report the incident to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
In sextortion schemes, criminal actors typically contact a large number of individuals across social networks in the hopes of persuading victims to respond — and form bogus love relationships.
During these correspondences, the scammers will request nude images or films of the victims, which they then threaten to reveal to friends and family or the general public if the victim does not pay a ransom of hundreds of dollars.
While Meta said that its automatic systems spotted the bulk of the fake accounts before they could cause any harm, it also employed various investigative methods to locate and shut down the remaining accounts.
According to Meta’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis, the firm is going public to raise awareness about these types of scams. Furthermore, she stated that Meta wants offenders to be aware that they are monitoring these crimes and actively working to prevent them.
Sextortion has become a major issue in recent years, with the FBI issuing warnings about the crime in 2023 and this year. In 2023, two Nigerian men suspected of running sextortion scams that resulted in the suicide of a 17-year-old Michigan girl were extradited to the United States to face charges for their alleged crimes.
A third person was ordered to be extradited to the United States by a Nigerian court in March 2024, but he is appealing the decision. The original suspects pleaded guilty in April.
In addition to the 63,000 Instagram profiles, Meta claimed it removed 7,200 Facebook assets, including 1,300 accounts, 200 pages, and 5,700 groups headquartered in Nigeria that provided scamming instructions, as well as scripts to use on victims and photographs to construct phony accounts.
In addition to eliminating the accounts, Meta claims it will provide services to help users avoid sextortion scams, such as on-device nudity protection, which automatically blurs photographs containing nudity in Instagram direct messages.
There are several ways for users to identify possible sextortion scammers. The most evident is receiving a message from someone you’ve never spoken to before, who appears to be attempting to connect with you via direct messaging without prompting. Another sign is a message from someone that includes an image and requests one in return.
Meta claims to have technology that can detect scammy or suspicious conduct in accounts and inform users who engage with them that they may be dealing with a scam account.
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Source
yahoo finance
