Facebook-parent Meta has taken down over two million accounts connected to scam centres across Southeast Asia and the Middle East this year. These accounts were linked to criminal organisations that employ tactics like “pig butchering” to deceive people globally through various platforms, including messaging apps, dating sites, social media, and crypto apps. Meta is actively targeting these organisations and partnering with law enforcement and industry peers to disrupt their operations and protect users from falling victim to these scams. The company has also shared its approach to counter the cross-border criminal organisations behind forced-labour scam compounds under its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) and safety policies.
What Is ‘Pig Butchering’ scam
Every day, criminals target people across the world through text messaging, dating apps, social media and email in so-called ‘pig-butchering’ and other schemes that try to con them into scam investments. Amongst these, one of the most sophisticated fraud scams, ‘pig butchering’ is all about building trusted personal relationships online with someone only to manipulate them to deposit more and more money into an investment scheme, often using cryptocurrency, and ultimately lose that money.
How these scams work and who are responsible
These sophisticated operations, often tightly scripted, involve some scammers casting a wide net to find potential victims, while others focus on building trust and convincing targets to send money. Once the scammers have extracted as much money as possible, they typically disappear, leaving the victim with significant financial losses.
Meta announced that it is actively fighting organised crime rings in Southeast Asia that force people to work as online scammers. These “scam compounds” lure job seekers with fake promises and then coerce them into participating in various online scams, including cryptocurrency fraud, romance scams (“pig butchering”), and impersonation schemes.
How Meta is fighting against these Online scam compounds
Meta said that it is tackling the growing threat of online scam compounds through a comprehensive strategy that includes:
- Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) policy: Designating scam compounds as DOIs, banning them from Meta’s platforms, and employing various enforcement tools.
- On-platform enforcement: Proactively monitoring and disrupting scam activities, taking down accounts, and refining detection methods.
- Collaboration: Partnering with law enforcement agencies globally to share insights and assist in investigations.
- Industry partnerships: Sharing threat information with other tech companies to combat scams across platforms.
- Product defenses: Implementing new features and safety measures across Meta’s apps to protect users from scams.
- Awareness campaigns: Educating users about scam tactics and providing safety tips.