Meta Platforms successfully deleted more than 63,000 scam accounts on Instagram in late May after linking them to sexual extortion (“sextortion”) schemes being run by Nigerian blackmailers. The crackdown, which also included the removal of thousands of Facebook groups dedicated to organizing and training new scammers, comes amid a rapid rise of sextortion cases in the US that has disproportionally harmed underage victims.
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Sextortion cases often begin when scammers, typically males, pose as young women or teenage girls online and entice targets to send nude photos. Those explicit images are then used to blackmail victims into paying the scammers or providing additional sexual favors, with the perpetrators threatening to send the images to friends and family if the target does not comply. The FBI says that sextortion is one of the fastest-growing crimes targeting children in the US.
More than two dozen minors, mostly teenage boys, have killed themselves after falling victim to sextortion schemes since 2021. According to Meta’s investigation, most of the scammers are linked to the Yahoo Boys, a loosely affiliated group of conmen operating out of Nigeria. The majority of the deleted accounts were traced back to this group, and Facebook pages for its members were providing new scammers with blackmail scripts and scam guides. One network of 2,500 fake accounts was being operated by just 20 people.
“Financial sextortion is a horrific crime that can have devastating consequences. This is an adversarial space where criminals evolve to evade our ever-improving defenses,” Meta said. “We will continue to focus on understanding how they operate so we can stay one step ahead.”
Connor Walcott is a staff writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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