(Photo by Cheng Xin/Getty Images))
Meta has shut down over 2 million accounts this year linked to "pig butchering" scams, which trick users into investing in dubious cryptocurrency schemes.
The accounts were sourced to "forced-labor" scam compounds, mainly in Southeast Asia, where organized criminals use thousands of workers to engage in deceptive schemes.
Although the scam centers are based in countries like Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, they target internet users worldwide. The goal is to build relationships with potential victims before "slaughtering" them like pigs by conning them into scam investments.
On Thursday, Meta said it spent the last two years investigating and disrupting scam centers in Southeast Asia and, more recently, the United Arab Emirates.
The scam centers sometimes force locals to work there using threats of physical violence. "The scale and sophistication of this threat is unprecedented, with the US Institute of Peace estimating that up to 300,000 people are forced into scamming others around the world by these criminal groups, with about $64 billion dollars stolen worldwide annually as of the end of 2023," Meta says.
Workers will engage in a wide range of online scams that often involve impersonating people, from attractive singles to trusted government figures or businesses, and reaching out to victims through emails, text messages, social media, or chat apps.
"We assess that much of the scam centers’ activity is tightly scripted by criminal syndicates to scale their operations," Meta adds. "It includes some forced-labor scammers focusing on casting a wide net online (often through automated means) to ‘spray and pray’ by reaching out to a large number of people via text message or online with a relatively generic appeal in hopes that some of them will respond. If they do, another group of scammers focuses on more tailored social engineering attempts to build trust and convince the potential targets to send money and invest.”
The investment schemes, which often involve cryptocurrency, usually let victims withdraw some funds initially. But eventually, the fraudsters lock up and steal the funds.
The details from Meta underscore the massive scale of today’s online scams and serve as a reminder to watch out for potential fraudsters, especially when talking with strangers. Since 2021, one in four people who reported losing money through fraud said it started on social media, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
To fight back, Facebook’s parent company has been working with local law enforcement and sharing intelligence with other companies, such as Coinbase and online dating provider Match Group, to shut down the malicious activity. Meta has also been rolling out safety features to warn users about suspected scams on its platforms, which include Instagram and WhatsApp.
As an example, Meta said: "On WhatsApp, if you’re added to a group chat by someone you don’t know, you’ll now see a context card giving you more information about the group. It’ll show who added you, how recently the group was created and who created it so you have context on this outreach."