Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has removed 63,000 accounts linked to the notorious ‘Yahoo Boys’ scam group.
The company announced, on July 24, in its Q1 2024 Adversarial Threat Report that the accounts were used to distribute financial sextortion scams and blackmail scripts.
Meta reported that a small network of 2,500 accounts associated with about 20 people was targeting mostly adult males in the United States using fake identities.
Meta also said it identified and disabled these accounts using a combination of advanced technical signals and extensive research, and improved its automated detection systems.
“Financial sextortion is a transnational crime, spurred in recent years by increased activity from the Yahoo Boys, a loosely organized group of cybercriminals operating primarily out of Nigeria and specializing in various types of fraud.”
“We removed approximately 63,000 accounts in Nigeria that attempted to target people with financial sextortion scams, including a coordinated network of approximately 2,500 accounts.
“We’ve also removed a set of Facebook accounts, Pages, and groups run by ‘Yahoo Boys’ banned under our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy that were attempting to organize, recruit, and train new scammers,” the company explained.
During the investigation, Meta found that the scammers’ attempts, some of which targeted minors, were unsuccessful, and these findings have been shared with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)
Meta said it is also sharing information with other technology companies through the Tech Coalition’s Lantern program to curb such scams across their platforms.
The parent company of Facebook has also announced that it has taken down approximately 7,200 assets in Nigeria, including 1,300 Facebook accounts, 200 pages, and a staggering 5,700 groups that were identified as providing resources that promote and enable fraudulent activities.
These assets included fraud scripts and instructions for creating fake accounts, as well as shared links to photo collections.
Meta has been actively thwarting any attempts by these groups to re-establish their presence on the platform while also enhancing its detection systems to identify and eliminate such harmful activities in the future.
The company also said it works closely with law enforcement to assist in investigations and prosecutions by responding to legal requests and alerting authorities of impending threats.
The social media giant said its efforts do not stop with removing accounts.
“We also fund and support NCMEC and the International Justice Mission in implementing Project Boost, a program that trains law enforcement agencies around the world to process and respond to NCMEC reports.
“We’ve conducted several training sessions so far, including in Nigeria and the Cote d’Ivoire, with our most recent session taking place just last month,” Meta said, to protect users, especially teenagers.
