Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has removed 63,000 accounts associated with Internet fraudsters, also known as Yahoo Boys.
INFORMATION NIGERIA reports that the tech giant disclosed this in its Q1 2024 Adversarial Threat Report on Wednesday.
The report revealed that some accounts deleted over the past few weeks, were said to be used for financial sextortion scams and distributing blackmail scripts.
Meta reported that a smaller network of 2,500 accounts, linked to around 20 individuals, primarily targeted adult men in the United States using fake identities.
The social media company said that it identified and disabled these accounts through a combination of advanced technical signals and comprehensive investigations, enhancing its automated detection systems.
The report partly reads: “Financial sextortion is a borderless crime, fueled in recent years by the increased activity of Yahoo Boys, loosely organised cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria that specialize in different types of scams.
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“We’ve 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’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.
Meta revealed that it also shared information with other tech companies via the Tech Coalition’s Lantern program to help curb these scams across platforms.
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.
These assets were found offering scripts and guides for scams and sharing links to collections of photos for creating fake accounts.
