Newscenter Media News Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has deactivated 63,000 accounts affiliated with the notorious “Yahoo Boys” scam organization, according to the company’s Q1 2024 Adversarial Threat Report released on Wednesday.
The accounts, which were removed in recent weeks, were used to conduct financial sextortion scams and distribute blackmail scripts. Meta revealed that a smaller network of 2,500 accounts, each linked to approximately 20 people, predominantly targeted adult men in the United States with forged identities.
Meta stated that it found and disabled these accounts using a mix of advanced technical signals and detailed investigations, hence improving its automatic detection systems.
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“Financial sextortion is a borderless crime, fueled in recent years by the increased activity of Yahoo Boys, loosely organised cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria that specialize in different types of scams,” the company said in a statement.
It continued: “We’ve removed around 63,000 accounts in Nigeria attempting to target people with financial s3xtortion scams, including a coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts.”
“We’ve also removed a set of Facebook accounts, Pages, and groups controlled by Yahoo Boys—banned under our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy—that were seeking to organize, recruit, and train new scammers,” the business clarified.”
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