Meta removes a massive network of Nigerian sextortion accounts

Meta said Wednesday it has removed roughly 63,000 accounts engaged in financial sextorion scams, a growing category of online crime in which scammers use fake accounts to dupe victims into sharing nude photos, then extort them for money. The accounts involved in the takedown were based in Nigeria, which has become a hotspot for financial sextortion, and included one coordinated network of 2,500 accounts that were traced back to just 20 individuals.

“Financial sextortion is a horrific crime that can have devastating consequences,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Our teams have deep experience in fighting this crime and work closely with experts to recognize the tactics scammers use, understand how they evolve and develop effective ways to help stop them.”

According to the FBI, at least 20 minors have died by suicide since 2021 after falling victim to these scams, which often target teen boys. A recent report by the nonprofit Thorn and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children revealed that between August 2022 and August 2023, an average of 812 instances of financial sextortion have been reported to NCMEC every week, with Meta being the top source of those reports.

This uptick in activity—and public awareness—has driven Meta to take more aggressive steps to prevent financial sextortion, including blurring nude imagery in teenagers’ direct messages and adding barriers to prevent potential scammers from connecting with teen users. While Meta said this particular network of 63,000 accounts targeted mainly adult men, there were also some minors among the targets.

Meta said it also found thousands of accounts, Facebook Groups, and Pages dedicated to teaching people how to pull off sextortion scams, complete with scripts and links to photos scammers can use to create fake accounts. According to Meta, these tutorials were linked to the Yahoo Boys, a network of cybercriminals that is banned on all of its platforms. This discovery by Meta aligns with NCMEC and Thorn’s own findings about the extent to which financial sextortion has become systematized. In some cases, different reports flowing into NCMEC’s tip line have included verbatim language, suggesting scammers are working from a common playbook.

“This is an adversarial space where criminals evolve to evade our ever-improving defenses,” Meta’s post read. “We will continue to focus on understanding how they operate so we can stay one step ahead, and will continue our vital cooperation with child safety experts, law enforcement and the tech industry to help disrupt these criminals across all the platforms they use.”