On July 24th, 2024, Meta released a press statement detailing their actions against sextortion and fake profiles, largely driven by cybercriminals known as Yahoo Boys, who target people across the internet with various scams. Meta reported that they have removed over 63,000 Instagram accounts based in Nigeria, including a smaller coordinated network of about 2,500 accounts linked to a group of around 20 individuals. These cybercriminals primarily targeted adult men in the US, using fake accounts to conceal their identities.
Additionally, Meta removed approximately 7,200 assets, which included 1,300 Facebook accounts, 200 Facebook Pages, and 5,700 Facebook Groups, all based in Nigeria. These groups provided tips for conducting scams, offered to sell scripts and guides for scamming, and shared links to photo collections for creating fake accounts.
The press release stated, "While these investigations and disruptions are critical, they’re just one part of our approach. We continue to support law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting these crimes, including by responding to valid legal requests for information and by alerting them when we become aware of someone at risk of imminent harm, in accordance with our terms of service and applicable law."
The press release also announced the development of new signals to identify these types of accounts. Meta has started testing an on-device nudity protection feature in Instagram DMs, which will blur images detected as containing nudity, encourage caution when sending sensitive images, and direct users to safety tips and resources, including NCMEC’s Take It Down platform.
Make no mistake, these Yahoo Boys represent a vast network of scammers that originated in Nigeria but have spread globally. These criminals are not limited to extortion; they also steal Facebook profiles to create fake businesses, tricking victims into losing small amounts of money. Instead of creating new fake profiles, which can now be detected by AI, they hijack real profiles, taking them over and using them to scam others while hiding behind the stolen identities.
Meta's actions have sent a clear message to scammers: combating these bad actors is now integral to the social media platform's business model. Users have a right to feel safe on social media, and it is the responsibility of these platforms to provide protection when individuals attempt to misuse them as tools for harm.
Takeaways
- Financial sextortion is a borderless crime, fueled in recent years by the increased activity of Yahoo Boys, loosely organized cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria that specialize in different types of scams.
- We’ve removed around 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria attempting to target people with financial sextortion scams, including a coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts.
- We’ve also removed a set of Facebook accounts, Pages and Groups run by Yahoo Boys – banned under our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy – that were attempting to organize, recruit and train new scammers.
Meta's Transpanrency Page for Policy Details
{ampz:share-now}
