Meta says it’s taken down 2 million accounts linked to ‘pig butchering’ scams

Meta is making progress in its fight against pig butchering scams. In an update, the company said it has taken down more than 2 million accounts associated with such scams this year and that its effort to work with other companies to take down fraudsters has had some success.

Described by Meta as “one of the most egregious and sophisticated” online scams, pig butchering is an increasingly common ruse in which scammers trick victims, who they often find on social media and dating apps, into making crypto investments and other financial schemes before disappearing with their funds. One study, published earlier this year and reported by Bloomberg, found that these scams “have likely stolen more than $75 billion from victims around the world” since 2020.

Meta says it’s been tracking the criminal networks behind these scams for the last two years as these groups have increasingly grown their geographic footprint. “This year alone, we’ve taken down over two million accounts associated with scam centers in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines,” the company said in a blog post. “We also continue to update behavioral and technical signals associated with these hubs to help us scale automated detection and block malicious infrastructure and recidivist attempts.”

Earlier this year, Meta joined Match Group, Coinbase and others in forming a coalition to jointly fight financial scams. In its latest update, Meta notes that it has also worked with other firms exploited by scammers. It says that OpenAI recently tipped off the social media company to “a newly stood up scam compound in Cambodia” after the AI company caught the would-be scammers attempting to translate scam content.