This year, Meta deleted more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts linked to the “pig slaughter” scam run by the organized crime syndicate in Southeast Asia.
Pig slaughter fraud usually starts with unsolicited messages and escalates into conversations that move to encrypted messaging apps and private chats. The ultimate goal is to convince the victims to transfer encryption to a counterfeit business or “investment” platform, often.
Victims usually find it too late to be unable to withdraw their deposits.
“We actively detected and deleted our accounts before the fraud centers could operate them,” the company said in a press release.
Meta links accounts to fraud networks operating abroad in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand, and reports that law enforcement agencies are running a massive fraud campaign targeting global victims.
Recent Enforcement Push is designed to confuse these groups before they start user damage.
WhatsApp also rolls out new tools that help users find and report suspicious activity. One such feature warns users when they are added to a group by someone who is not in their contact list, a common tactic used by fraudsters that promote fake investment schemes.
The announcement comes amid calls for social media and messaging apps to use these platforms to stop scammers and adopt a more proactive approach to reach and misuse victims in many cases on a large scale.
According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), $9.3 billion was lost to online fraud in 2024, marking record highs.
Cryptocurrency fraud alone accounted for more than $3.9 billion in total, and senior users were particularly difficult hits. If there are those numbers based solely on reports to the FBI, the actual total can be significantly higher.
Growing crypto fraud issues
Many of these scams began on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram.
Meta cited one of the most recent cases in which he worked with Openai to disrupt the Cambodian group running the renter’s pyramid scheme. The scammer reportedly used CHATGPT to create victim instructions and recruited people with fake money offers in exchange for social media engagement.
Authorities have stepped up warnings worldwide in recent months, allowing users to have two stages of verification on WhatsApp, urging them to doubt strange messages and unexpected group invitations.
Still, critics argue that platforms like Meta need to take more powerful and more systematic behavior.
In a blog last month, in the scam cuts of senior vice president at the Banking Policy Institute, Greg Williamson said the incentives for social media giants to crack down on fraudsters are in line with.
“To effectively fight fraud, tech platforms need to prioritize customer protection. They are in a strong position to prevent abuse, but their incentives often work against positive behavior,” he writes.
He pointed out that social media platforms are garnering advertising revenue from fraudulent content, highlighting one ongoing case in which Meta has been accused of allowing more than 230,000 fraudulent ads to be run on a platform featuring Australian billionaire Andrew Forest’s deepfakes.
Featuring everyone from Elon Musk to Charles III, Deepfake is shared on social media to make people tempt to invest. People who are impersonating these deceptive ads report struggling to defeat Meta.
Scammers will purchase ads from meta and other sources to spread the post.
“These companies do not have financial incentives to prevent fraud in sources,” Williamson added.
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