Meta said Thursday it removed more than 2 million accounts linked to “pig-butchering” investment schemes that leave victims out of large sums of money.
These pig-butchering fraud schemes are usually long-term cons, in which scammers pose as friendly or romantic individuals or government or business representatives who ultimately manipulate victims into depositing money into an investment scheme.
The schemes lose money, and the victims are often out large sums of money, sometimes in the form of cryptocurrency.
“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,” Meta wrote in a press release Thursday.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said it is “continuously investigating” criminal organizations spearheading these scams. These organizations run scam compounds, which popped up during the COVID-19 pandemic often in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines.
These scam centers trick job seekers with unrealistic job postings and then force them — often through physical threats — into working as online scammers, Meta said. Up to 300,000 people are forced into these roles, according to estimates by the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent research organization established by Congress.
To counter this growing threat, Meta said it is working with expert nongovernmental organizations and law enforcement in the U.S. and Southeast Asia to understand how these criminal groups operate.
Once a criminal organization linked to these schemes is designated as a dangerous organization or individuals (DOIs), the entitles are banned from the platform and subject to various enforcement tools.
Investigative teams also monitor if DOIs try to avoid enforcement, which includes checking for new compounds and repeatedly disrupting operations, Meta said.
Meta also works with other companies in the industry, which share information about criminal syndicates that could be targeting online users on various platforms. The tech giant pointed to a recent example where OpenAI shared information with Meta about a scam compound in Cambodia, leading Meta to disrupt the malicious activity on its platforms.
About $64 billion dollars has been stolen as part of the schemes as of the end of 2023, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace.