Meta unveils large-scale crackdown on fraud by organized crime
- Facebook has removed more than two million accounts from its platform
- The accounts were involved in so-called “pig slaughter”.
- The majority of the casualties occurred in Asian markets
In an effort to tackle organized crime on its platform, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta have removed more than two million scam accounts.
The company announced the news in a blog postdetailing how the majority of these accounts were used in so-called ‘pig slaughter’ scams.
Pig slaughter is a scam where the scammer “stuffs the pig” and prepares it for “slaughter.” In this context, stuffing the pig means tricking the victim into giving away as much money as possible, for as long as possible, before the scam is exposed and the gig is over.
Hotbed of Asia and the Pacific
Such scams usually happen through social engineering, on platforms such as Facebook. The scammers would create fake accounts of (usually) young, attractive women and have seemingly benign conversations with potential victims. At some point, the scammers would introduce a great investment opportunity or platform that in reality is not genuine and is maintained by the crooks.
They invited the victim to ‘invest’ together, in preparation for a new life together. The victim gave money through an app and was shown the investments growing over time. However, at this point the money has already run out and it is nothing more than numbers on a screen. The scammer would try to keep the ruse going for as long as possible so that the victim would spend as much as possible.
When at some point the victim tries to withdraw the money (or realizes something is wrong), they will see that this is not possible.
In some cases, the fraudsters went a step further, posing as ‘technical support’ from the ‘investment platform’ and telling the victim to pay a withdrawal fee or the like – a last-ditch effort to squeeze as much value out of the victim as possible. to fetch. as they can.
Meta says the majority of scam centers were in Asia Pacific, specifically Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and, more recently, the UAE. However, the victims are spread all over the world. The campaign to tackle these scams is a joint effort, involving many major cryptocurrency exchanges, technology companies such as OpenAI, and law enforcement organizations.
“Every day, criminals target people around the world via text messaging, dating apps, social media and email in so-called ‘pig slaughter’ and other schemes that attempt to trick them into investment scams,” the company’s blog said.
“We hope that sharing our insights will help inform the defense of our industry so that we can collectively help protect people from criminal scammers.”
