Meta Deletes 63,000 Instagram Accounts in Nigeria For Sextortion Scams

Meta Platforms said Wednesday it removed 63,000 Nigerian accounts that attempted financial, and sexual extortion, largely targeting US adult men

The “Yahoo boys,” Nigerian online fraudsters, are infamous for their scams, which include posing as individuals in financial distress or Nigerian billionaires who promise an exceptional return on investment.

Meta stated in a statement that it had removed 7,200 Facebook accounts, pages, and groups dedicated to providing advice on scamming people, in addition to the 63,000 accounts on Instagram.

Additionally, the organization eliminated a smaller, coordinated network of approximately 2,500 devices associated with a group of some 20 persons.

In sexual extortion, or “sextortion,” individuals are threatened with the release of compromising photos, whether they are genuine or fabricated unless they pay a fee to prevent them.

Meta informed the U.S. National Center for Missing. She explained to Children that most of the scammers’ attempts were unsuccessful, and while they primarily targeted adults, there were also attempts against juveniles.

Meta representatives stated they had previously disrupted similar networks but divulged the current operation to “increase awareness.”

In recent years, the social media giant has been under increasing pressure from governments, including legislators in the United States, to address concerns that its executives have disregarded evidence that its services hurt children. As a result, the company has been on the defensive.

One U.S. lawmaker accused Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and other social media leaders of having “blood on their hands” in a hearing earlier this year for failing to protect children from the escalating threats of sexual predation on their platforms.

The U.S. Surgeon General has also advocated for a warning label on social media applications to remind them of the damages they can cause.

Nigeria’s fraudsters were named “419 scams” in the section of the national penal code that attempted to address fraud but failed to do so effectively.

The number of online scams has increased in the country of over 200 million people as economic hardships continue to deteriorate. The individuals responsible for these scams are in university dormitories, shanty suburbs, or affluent neighborhoods.

Meta stated that certain accounts were offering advice on how to conduct schemes.

“Their efforts included offering to sell scripts and guides to use when scamming people, and sharing links to collections of photos to use when populating fake accounts,” according to the investigation.