Meta has intensified its fight against a rapidly growing phenomenon known as the ‘pig butchering‘ scam, dismantling over two million fraudulent accounts in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, the United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines. These scams, orchestrated by transnational criminal networks, prey on unsuspecting victims worldwide by luring them into fake cryptocurrency investments, often leaving them financially devastated.
These scams often begin innocuously on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram or through dating apps, where fraudsters build trust with unsuspecting victims. Over time, the conversation shifts to lucrative investment opportunities, frequently tied to fraudulent cryptocurrency platforms.
Victims, lured by promises of high returns, are encouraged to invest large sums, often their life savings, only to find the platforms vanish along with their money.
“Typical of ‘pig butchering’ schemes, the target may be allowed to withdraw small amounts to build trust, but once they start asking for their ‘investment’ back or it becomes clear that they do not have more funds to send to the scammer, overseas scammers typically disappear with all the money,” Meta explained.
Mostly, countries from South East Asia are part of this operation with UAE emerging as the next hub.
“While our initial focus was on scam centres in Cambodia, we have since worked to keep pace with the expansion of these groups as they began to appear in places like Laos, Myanmar and more recently the United Arab Emirates,” Meta wrote.
Meta has been proactively targeting these operations, leveraging its Dangerous Individuals and Organisations (DOI) policy to remove accounts linked to these networks. The company is also working with NGOs and law enforcement to understand the strategies employed by these criminal groups, particularly in hot spots like Camodia’s Sihanoukville.
Meta’s efforts are part of a broader initiative involving partnerships across industries. Earlier this year, it joined forces with cryptocurrency platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, Gemini, and Match Group.
Together with the Global Anti-Scam Organisation, they launched ‘Tech Against Scams,’ a coalition aimed at intelligence sharing and developing countermeasures against cyber fraud.
In one notable instance, Meta collaborated with OpenAI to dismantle operations linked to a compound in Cambodia. OpenAI had flagged the misuse of its generative AI tools by scammers targeting victims in Japan and China.
Last month, Meta agreed to share data with UK banks to counter online fraud.
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